Accredited food safety training in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape.
Food safety training in Gqeberha and Nelson Mandela Bay, from the ASC head office
ASC Food Safety Consultants is based in Gqeberha, at 14 Brickmakers Kloof Road in South End, so this is the one city where a trainer can be at your premises the same week. The Certificate of Acceptability here is issued by the Environmental Health sub-directorate of the municipality’s Public Health Directorate, and unlike Cape Town or Johannesburg the Bay charges an application fee for it (Nelson Mandela Bay organisational structure; News24, November 2024).
The Bay’s food work is citrus moving through the Port Elizabeth and Ngqura terminals, the Coega dairy and cheese plants, vehicle-plant canteens, beachfront restaurants and the spaza shops of Motherwell and KwaNobuhle, where only 293 of 1 136 registration applications were complete at the February 2025 deadline.
2 300+ learner ratings across all ASC programmes, including KFC and Spur franchise training · 6 600+ course enrolments across South Africa
Which course do I need in Gqeberha?
Pick your situation. Each one goes straight to the right course and price.
A Certificate of Acceptability for my premisesPersons in Charge · R1 699 · 16h A food handler certificate for workFood Handlers · R899 · 6h A spaza shop, tuck shop or market stallInformal Traders and Spaza Shops · R999 · 6h HACCP or GMP training for my teamThree HACCP levels from R1 195 · group pricing FSSC 22000, ISO 22000 or BRCGS certificationIntroduction, transition and implementation On-site or group training in GqeberhaBulk enrolment, one invoice, manager dashboardCertificate of Acceptability in Gqeberha
Who issues it, what the inspector checks, and the training you must show.
Read the full Certificate of Acceptability guide and the city by city R638 guide.
In Gqeberha the Certificate of Acceptability is issued by the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality. An environmental health practitioner inspects the premises and recommends the certificate in the name of the person in charge, as Regulation 3 of R638 requires. Official page: Nelson Mandela Bay: R638 conditions for a Certificate of Acceptability (PDF).
Whoever issues it, the inspection follows the same regulation. R638 requires the person in charge to be trained (regulation 10(1)(d)) and to keep a record that every food handler has been trained, and the inspector can ask for those records at any visit. Certificates from ASC show the accreditation details and a QR code, so the record is verifiable on the spot.
Gqeberha is ASC’s home city. The head office is in South End, ten minutes from the harbour. Nelson Mandela Bay has a municipal fresh produce market at Markman, the Coega Special Economic Zone with an agro-processing cluster, and a coastline of fisheries, restaurants and hotels from Summerstrand to Blue Horizon Bay. Industrial and food-manufacturing areas we train in include Deal Party, Struandale, Markman, Korsten, Neave, Perseverance, Sidwell, Fairview and the Coega Special Economic Zone.
- Persons in Charge for the owner or manager named on the certificate
- Food Handlers for every person who touches food, drink or packaging
- Records: training register, illness reports, cleaning, temperature and pest control (regulation 10)
- Documents: the R638 toolkit gives you the policies, forms and registers, 15% off with a course
Where to apply in Gqeberha
Where and how to apply for a Certificate of Acceptability in Gqeberha.
Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, Public Health, Environmental Health Services. Contact details below were checked against the municipality’s own website on 6 September 2026; phone before you travel, because offices, hours and numbers change.
Offices and contacts
| Office | Phone |
|---|---|
| Environmental Health, Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha) | 041 506 5412 and 041 506 5413 |
| Environmental Health, Uitenhage (Kariega) | 041 994 1296 |
| Environmental Health, Despatch | 041 994 1631 |
Email publichealth@mandelametro.gov.za, or customer care 0800 20 50 50.
Official pages and forms
How to apply
- Complete sections A to G of the application form and attach the documents.
- Pay the fee by EFT and submit to the environmental health office for Gqeberha, Kariega or Despatch.
- An environmental health practitioner inspects the premises against the R638 conditions.
- Display the certificate; notify the municipality within 30 days when the person in charge changes, and note that a prohibition of six months or more lapses the certificate.
Documents to prepare
- Formal premises: zoning certificate or special consent from Town Planning, proof of waste removal, a pest control contract, a certificate of food safety training, and a fire safety certificate where gas is used
- Informal traders and hawkers: the trading permit, two ID photos, a food safety training certificate and a gas installation certificate where applicable
- A valid permit for a non-South African applicant
Fee and turnaround
R704 for a formal premises, R225 for an informal premises and R211 for a re-issue, paid by EFT and non-refundable (Environmental Health Services price list). Not published.
What the inspector checks
The municipality’s published R638 conditions: structure and finishes, hand-wash and toilet facilities, temperature control, waste, pest control, personal hygiene and the training certificate the applicant must attach.
Nelson Mandela Bay is one of the few metros that asks for proof of food safety training with the application itself, which is why ASC’s Persons in Charge course is the usual first step here.
Local detail, verified September 2026
What is different about Gqeberha
- The health authority is the Public Health Directorate. Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality’s organisational structure places Environmental Health as a sub-directorate of the Directorate: Public Health, alongside Environmental Management, Occupational Health, Safety and Wellness, Primary Health Care, Parks and Waste Management, so the same directorate that issues your CoA also runs the clinics and refuse (NMBM Annexure A, organisational structure). Kariega (Uitenhage) and Despatch are inside the metro and are served by the same directorate.
- The application is a walk-in form, and there is a fee. The municipality’s Application Form for Certificate of Acceptability for Food Premises asks for the nature of the food, the handling activities and the number of staff, and its published Conditions for a CoA require the certificate to be displayed, prohibit transferring it between people or premises, require a change of person in charge to be reported within 30 days, and suspend it during a prohibition notice, permanently if the notice is not lifted within six months (NMBM application form and conditions). The Public Health Directorate quoted a R796 business licence fee at a Kariega landlord meeting in November 2024, and processing fees are non-refundable; the current CoA and licence amounts and the Brister House submission point are in the Where to apply block on this page (News24, 25 November 2024; ASC registration guide for the Bay).
- The spaza drive fell short here. By the 28 February 2025 deadline the metro had received 1 136 registration applications from an estimated 1 637 spaza shops, and only 293 were complete; the MMC for Public Health said raids would continue (Algoa FM). A Public Health Directorate blitz in Kariega on 19 December 2024 closed six shops, with a senior EHP telling owners to stay closed until the certificates were in hand (The Herald).
- Enforcement is now a standing task team. On 7 July 2026 the municipality’s By-law Enforcement Task Team, coordinated through the chief operating officer’s office with the Public Health Directorate, warned that spaza and home business premises must comply with SPLUMA, the land use scheme, R638 and the Public Health By-laws, with landlords’ Assistance to the Poor concerns no excuse (Bizcommunity, 7 July 2026).
- Citrus and the two ports. Sundays River Valley and Gamtoos citrus leaves through the Port Elizabeth and Ngqura container terminals from April to October, with reefer vessels of up to 7 800 containers calling and Transnet reporting 21 percent more containers in April 2025 than the year before (Engineering News, 20 May 2025). Pack-houses, cold stores and depots around Deal Party, Markman and Coega all fall under R638 for the handling side and need HACCP for the export audits.
- Coega is a food node, not only cars. Coega Dairy, one of the country’s largest long-life milk producers, and the Famous Brands Cheese Company, which processes nine million kilograms of cheese a year for the group’s franchise network, sit in the Coega zone and employ 275 people between them (Famous Brands). The metro’s own food manufacturers cluster in Deal Party, Perseverance, Markman, Neave, Korsten and Struandale.
- Tourism is domestic and event-driven. Nelson Mandela Bay recorded 415 648 domestic overnight trips and R703 million in domestic spend in the first quarter of 2025, and the 2025 Ironman African Championship alone brought R87.9 million in direct spend to the Bay’s hotels and restaurants (Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism; The Herald, 14 April 2026).
- Metro, not province, and the head office is here. As a metropolitan municipality the Bay delivers its own municipal health services under section 32 of the National Health Act; the Eastern Cape Department of Health does not inspect food premises inside the metro (DBSA review). Beyond the metro boundary, Sarah Baartman District Municipality EHPs cover Jeffreys Bay, Humansdorp, Kirkwood and Addo. ASC’s head office at 14 Brickmakers Kloof Road, South End, runs on-site and in-house training across the Bay and the district, usually within the week.
Sources
- NMBM organisational structure, Annexure A (PDF)
- NMBM application for a CoA (PDF)
- NMBM conditions for a CoA (PDF)
- News24, 25 November 2024
- ASC registration guide for Nelson Mandela Bay
- Algoa FM, spaza registrations
- The Herald, 20 December 2024
- Bizcommunity, 7 July 2026
- Engineering News, 20 May 2025
- Famous Brands, Coega
- Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism, Q1 2025
- The Herald, 14 April 2026
- DBSA review of municipal health services (PDF)
Courses Gqeberha businesses buy most
Six courses cover almost every food premises in Gqeberha.
- Food Safety Practices for Persons in Charge of Food Premises ★ 4.77 (101) R1 699 Enrol
- Basic Food Safety Practices for Food Handlers ★ 4.76 (58) R899 Enrol
- Basic Food Hygiene Awareness for Food Handlers ★ 4.86 (21) R420 Enrol
-
Food Safety Practices for Informal Traders and Spaza Shops
★ 4.88 (8)
R1 195R999 Enrol - Implementation of Good Manufacturing Practices ★ 5.00 (3) R1 950 Enrol
- Introduction to HACCP ★ 4.90 (10) R1 195 Enrol
- Basic Food Safety Document Templates Toolkit Templates Documents R699 View toolkit
Prices are the price you pay; no VAT is charged. The Basic Food Safety Bundle covers Persons in Charge, Food Handlers and Hygiene Awareness together at R2 264. HACCP for Supervisors and Advanced HACCP, FSSC 22000, ISO 22000, BRCGS and GLOBALG.A.P. are on the Enrol page.
Who trains with ASC in Gqeberha
Written for the food businesses that operate in Gqeberha
Summerstrand and Humewood hotels, the Boardwalk, the Stanley Street and Richmond Hill restaurant strips, Walmer Park and Baywest food courts and the Kariega and Despatch takeaways all need a manager on Persons in Charge and every handler certified before the Public Health inspection. The head office runs on-site sessions across the Bay and groups also train online with one dashboard.
Pack-houses, cold stores and depots serving the Port Elizabeth and Ngqura reefer trade, the Coega dairy and cheese plants, and the bakeries, snack, beverage and meat processors of Deal Party, Perseverance, Markman, Neave and Korsten run R638 basics for the floor and Introduction to HACCP, HACCP for Supervisors and GMP for the quality team facing retailer and export audits.
Canteens and contract caterers inside the assembly plants and component suppliers in Kariega, Struandale, Markman and the Coega zone are food premises under R638 like any restaurant. Persons in Charge for the catering manager, Food Handlers for the canteen crew, and the R638 document toolkit for the registers the EHP asks to see.
Motherwell, KwaZakhele, New Brighton, Zwide, Gqebera in Walmer, Helenvale and KwaNobuhle are where the Public Health Directorate’s inspections and the July 2026 task team are concentrated. The Informal Traders and Spaza Shops course is written for the Bay’s CoA and business licence file, and the head office can walk an owner through Brister House.
On-site and in-house training
Train a Gqeberha kitchen, plant or franchise group on one dashboard.
The ASC head office at 14 Brickmakers Kloof Road, South End, runs on-site and in-house training across Nelson Mandela Bay and the Sarah Baartman district, usually within the week.
- Send the learner countWhatsApp or the contact form. Quote within one working day, one invoice, no VAT.
- Learners train online or on sitePhone, tablet or laptop, self-paced for the R638 courses. On-site sessions through the Gqeberha branch.
- Manager dashboardSee who has finished, download certificates, and hand the inspector a training record for every site.
Add the documents. The Basic Food Safety Document Templates Toolkit (R699, 40+ editable Word and Excel policies, procedures, forms and checklists aligned to R638) is 15% off when you buy it with any R638 course. Tell us on WhatsApp +27 61 483 0381 or the contact form which course you are enrolling in, and we invoice both with the discount applied.
Questions from Gqeberha
What Gqeberha food businesses ask before they enrol.
Anything else, message us on WhatsApp during office hours or use the support page.
Who issues the Certificate of Acceptability in Gqeberha?
The Environmental Health sub-directorate of Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality’s Public Health Directorate. An environmental health practitioner inspects the premises against R638 and the certificate is issued in the name of the person in charge; the municipality’s published conditions require it to be displayed on the premises, and a change of person in charge must be reported within 30 days.
Is there a fee for the CoA in Nelson Mandela Bay?
Yes. Unlike Cape Town and Johannesburg, the Bay charges non-refundable processing fees for the business licence and for the Certificate of Acceptability, with lower amounts for informal traders and for re-issues. The current amounts and the Brister House submission point are in the Where to apply block on this page; confirm them with the Public Health Directorate before you pay, because tariffs change each July.
What happens at the inspection in the Bay?
The EHP checks the structure and finishes, hand-wash facilities, water and waste, temperature control, pest control with a treatment report, personal hygiene and the training record for the person in charge and every food handler under regulation 10(1)(d). During the December 2024 Kariega blitz a senior EHP closed six shops until their certificates were in hand, so train first and have the certificates printed or ready to scan.
Does the Nelson Mandela Bay EHP accept an online ASC certificate?
Yes, and this is our home municipality. R638 does not prescribe classroom or online delivery; it requires the person in charge to be trained and to keep a training record for every handler. ASC is a SAATCA registered provider, TC 065, for the R638 Persons in Charge course and a FoodBev SETA accredited provider (587/00337/1900), and every certificate carries a QR code the EHP scans on the spot.
Can ASC train my team on site in Gqeberha?
Yes. The ASC head office at 14 Brickmakers Kloof Road, South End, runs on-site and in-house training across Gqeberha, Kariega, Despatch and the Sarah Baartman district, usually within the week, from a single takeaway to a plant or franchise group. Groups also train online with one invoice and a manager dashboard. Send the learner count on WhatsApp or the contact form.
Also serving
Food safety training near Gqeberha.
This page covers the whole Nelson Mandela Bay metro: Gqeberha, Kariega, Despatch, Motherwell, Coega, Colchester and Blue Horizon Bay, all under the Public Health Directorate. Jeffreys Bay, Humansdorp, St Francis Bay, Kirkwood, Addo and Paterson fall under the Sarah Baartman District Municipality’s environmental health practitioners, who issue their own CoAs; the ASC head office in South End quotes on-site training for all of them, and East London and Buffalo City have their own page on the city and province index.