Ensuring the safety of the public

All food traders, whether formal or informal, have to comply with strict hygiene regulations and by-laws around the handling and storing of food. You can find all these regulations and guidelines on this page. We also run a number of food safety programmes and offer a range of services to assist the implementation of these health and food safety regulations.

The City monitors the safety of food products supplied by formal or informal businesses in the following ways:

• Business licensing and issuing of Certificates of Acceptability
• Certificates of acceptability for dairy farms
• Unannounced inspections and food sampling
• Investigating reports of food poisoning or food-borne illnesses
  
• Investigating other complaints and concerns related to foodstuffs

Health and food safety regulations and guides

For legal hygiene requirements for food premises and transporting of food, please see the Regulations Governing General Hygiene Requirements for Food Premises, the Transport of Food and Related Matters – R968 of 2018 and all other national legislation and guidelines for food safety, food control and food health on the National Department of Health’s website.

Food hygiene guidelines for informal traders or hawkers can be found in:

Guidelines for Informal Food Trading/Hawking

For information on the procedures followed by the City of Cape Town’s Environmental Health Practitioners (EHPs) during inspections of food premises and sampling of food products, you can consult:

EHP Food Inspections Sampling

For milk safety requirements and what the City is doing to ensure our milk is healthy, read:

Milk Quality and Safety

For rules around the keeping of livestock and poultry, see:

Policy for the Keeping of Animals and Poultry for the City Of Cape Town

You can also download the following documents:

City of Cape Town Animal By-Law, 2010
City of Cape Town's Environmental Health By-Law – Gn 6041 Of 2003
Urban Agricultural Policy for the City of Cape Town (2006)

Licencing and certifying your food business

If you still need to apply for a licence or certification for your food business, visit City Connect: .

Document downloads

• 1. Animal Keeping By-law, 2021

     09/12/2021, By-law - 792.6 KB

  2. Animal Keeping Policy, 2021

     21/06/2021, Policy - 751 KB

  3. City Health Tariffs

     01/07/2026, Budget annexure,Tariff - 1.1 MB

  4. Environmental Health By-law

     01/06/2003, By-law - 499.2 KB

  5. Food Sampling and Inspection Guideline

     18/10/2016, Guideline - 535.4 KB

  6. Informal Hawkers Structures Guidelines

     30/06/2000, Guideline - 288.4 KB

  7. Milk Quality and Safety Guideline

     18/10/2016, Guideline - 492 KB

  8. Rules for Informal Food Traders Pamphlet

     01/01/2016, Guideline,Pamphlet - 420.7 KB