Food recall insurance
There is no requirement to arrange recall insurance for your business – it is optional. However, some businesses arrange recall insurance to assist with costs associated with recalls. Product recall insurance is typically excluded from standard business insurance.
Product recall insurance can help with:
- recall costs involved with destroying, re-labelling, re-processing, or re-purposing of affected product, labour, and advertising
- recall costs incurred by business customers such as further manufacturers and/or retailers
- business interruption costs and promotion expenses.
Recall costs for a nationally distributed product in New Zealand can run to many thousands of dollars. You may like to consider if product recall insurance is right for your business.
Recalling third-party branded products
Some manufacturers make products under a third-party's branding. New Zealand Food Safety recommends that manufacturers and brand-owners agree upfront (For example, contractually) about roles and responsibilities if there were to be a recall.
Table: Examples of how responsibilities could be shared between manufacturers and brand-owners
| Task | Responsibility | |
| Manufacturer | Brand-owner | |
| Inform brand-owner of any problems with branded product | At the earliest opportunity, preferably in writing | NA |
| Inform manufacturer of any problems with branded product | NA | At the earliest opportunity, preferably in writing |
| Investigating, tracing branded product(s) and/or ingredients | Tracing backward to suppliers | Tracing forward to customers of their branded products |
| Sharing of information relevant to a recall decision | At the earliest opportunity, preferably in writing | At the earliest opportunity, preferably in writing |
| Assessing risk and making a decision about a recall | NA | For their branded products |
| Checking the recall decision with New Zealand Food Safety, planning what will happen to recalled products | NA | For their branded products |
| Communicating about the recall to businesses and consumers | NA | For their branded products |
Related information
Food recall guidance for businesses
