Food Safety Policy

Rizq Rasan sells food rather than giving it away, so Pakistan’s food sale laws, including the Islamabad Capital Territory Food Safety Act 2021, apply in full. No Good Samaritan law protects anyone who donates or sells surplus food in Pakistan. This policy sets the rules every listing and every pickup must follow, during the pilot and after launch. It forms part of our Terms of Service, and vendors and NGOs also agree to it through the Vendor Agreement and the NGO Agreement. A shorter version is on our food safety page.

1. Who is responsible for what

Responsibility for the food passes from the vendor to the NGO at handover, when the vendor confirms the pickup code. Rizq Rasan is a technology platform. It never prepares, cooks, owns, stores, packs, carries or inspects food.

Our limits follow the WHO Five Keys to Safer Food and the 2-hour and 4-hour rule used by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ). They will be confirmed with a food-safety adviser or the Islamabad Food Authority before launch.

2. What can be listed, and when

Food categories open in stages, starting with food that carries the least risk.

The cooked-food gate. Cooked food opens on 1 February 2027, 4 weeks after the pilot starts, only if there has been no food incident in that time. If there has been one, cooked food stays closed, and any new date will be published on this page.

3. Food that is never allowed

Whatever the category, these can’t be listed:

• food past its use-by date;
• home-cooked food;
• plate returns, food served to customers, or part-eaten food;
• opened dairy drinks;
• recalled products;
• alcohol and tobacco;
• raw meat, poultry and fish, which are left out while the platform starts;
• frozen food, except packaged goods up to their label date.

Before publishing, every vendor must confirm two statements: “This food was never served to customers and is not a plate return” and “This food has been stored correctly and is safe to eat.” Listing food that breaks these rules can lead to the listing being removed, a strike, or suspension.

4. Time and temperature limits

Chilled food must be kept at 5°C or below, and hot-held food at 60°C or above. Each category sets the longest time food can be listed for, depending on how it is stored.

When the clock starts

• Cooked food, bakery and mithai count from when they were cooked or baked.
• Cooked food at room temperature gets at most 2 hours, counted from when it was set out at room temperature. This follows the FSANZ rule for food between 5°C and 60°C.
• Hot-held food is capped at 4 hours, as our own quality limit.
• Fruit and vegetables count from when the listing is published.
• Packaged goods, dairy and drinks follow the use-by or best-before date on the pack.

Safe-until and the pickup window

• Safe-until fills itself in from the category limit and the times the vendor enters. A vendor can shorten it but never extend it.
• Mixed trays take the strictest limit of anything in them. The vendor ticks which categories the tray contains.
• The pickup window must be at least 30 minutes long, end at least 60 minutes after publishing, and end at least 30 minutes before the safe-until time.

5. The hot months

From May to September, cooked food can’t be listed at room temperature at all. It must be hot-held at 60°C or more, or chilled to 5°C or less, because 2 hours at 40°C is not safe.

6. Describing and labelling food

Every listing must describe the food truthfully, so NGOs can decide whether it suits the people they serve.

• Photos. 1 to 3 real photos of the actual food, the first one required. Photos show food, not people.
• What it is. A plain title, the right category, the quantity and an estimated weight.
• Times and dates. When cooked food, bakery and mithai were prepared. When cooked food was set out at room temperature. The use-by or best-before date for dairy, packaged goods and drinks, copied from the pack.
• How it is stored now. Hot-held, room temperature, chilled or frozen. Cooked food stored chilled needs a tick to confirm it was chilled within 2 hours of cooking.
• Allergens. Tick every allergen the food contains: gluten, milk or ghee, egg, peanut, tree nuts, sesame, soy, fish, crustaceans or mustard. Use “may contain” when food is made in a shared kitchen.
• Meat and diet. Whether the food is vegetarian, or contains beef, mutton, chicken or fish.
• Halal. The vendor declares whether food is halal, and listings show “vendor-declared”. A listing shows “halal-certified” only when the vendor has uploaded a halal certificate. Halal certification in Pakistan is regulated under the Pakistan Halal Authority Act 2016.

7. Packaging and storage until handover

• Packaging. Each listing says how the food is packed: sealed containers, foil trays, or loose. If it is loose, the NGO brings its own clean containers.
• Storage. The vendor keeps food at the right temperature until it is handed over: chilled food at 5°C or below, hot-held food at 60°C or above.
• Frozen food is allowed only for packaged goods, up to their label date.

8. Checks before a listing goes live

Before a vendor can list, we check its Islamabad Food Authority licence, as our Verification Policy explains. Each listing then gets automatic checks. It goes to our team for review, instead of going live, when:

• it is one of the vendor’s first 3 listings;
• its price or retail value per kilogram is more than 3 times the vendor’s usual;
• its weight is more than 3 times our estimate for its quantity;
• a photo fails a basic check, for example it is too dark, blank, or a copy of an old photo.

Everything else goes live straight away. Our team can still correct a listing’s category or times, end it early, or remove it, and the vendor is always told the reason.

9. Handover and inspection at pickup

1. The NGO’s collector looks at the food, smells it and checks its temperature before the pickup code is entered.
2. If anything seems unsafe, the collector doesn’t take it. They tap “Refuse food” on the collector pass and add a photo. The NGO is refunded in full straight away, and our team reviews the case. If the refusal is upheld, the vendor gets a strike.
3. If the food is fine, the vendor or its staff type in the 4-digit code, confirm the quantity handed over and tap Confirm. Only this step marks the food as picked up.

The vendor sees the expected collector’s name, and can call the NGO if someone else arrives. How refunds work for refused or short handovers is set out in our Payments and Refunds policy.

10. NGO handling after pickup

Once the food is handed over, the NGO is responsible for it. NGOs must:

• take the food straight to their kitchen or distribution point;
• keep chilled food cold and hot food hot on the way;
• serve or refrigerate cooked food as soon as it arrives;
• never serve food after its safe-until time;
• keep a simple log of where the food went;
• never sell food claimed through Rizq Rasan, which means permanent removal.

An NGO that cooks or reheats food may need its own Islamabad Food Authority licence. We will confirm this with a lawyer before launch.

11. Reporting a food safety problem

If someone may be ill from the food, get medical help first.

• NGOs report a problem on the order within 24 hours of pickup, with what went wrong, up to 3 photos, the quantity received and the time. Food-safety cases go to the top of our queue, and if someone may be ill, the form shows an emergency number. Collectors can also report from the collector pass.
• Vendors must tell us within 24 hours about any food incident or any action by the Islamabad Food Authority.
• Anyone can email us at hello@rizqrasan.pk, including before the platform opens.

We expect most pickups between 8 pm and midnight, so one member of our team will be on call every evening to handle food-safety cases.

12. Incident and recall steps

When a food-safety problem is reported, we follow these steps:

1. Acknowledge. We acknowledge the report within 4 working hours.
2. Recall. Where food from a batch may be unsafe, one action by our team freezes every live listing from that vendor in the same category. We remove any listing that breaks these rules and tell the vendor why.
3. Warn. We email every NGO that collected food from the same batch, and show a notice in their account, telling them the food has been withdrawn and must not be served.
4. Gather evidence. We keep the photos, messages and the order’s timeline, and hear both sides.
5. Decide. We decide food-safety cases within 24 hours and send the decision to both sides in writing. If the complaint is upheld, the NGO gets a full or partial refund and the vendor bears the cost.
6. Cooperate with the authorities. We cooperate with the Islamabad Food Authority, and share the records it asks for as the law requires. Vendors must cooperate with the Authority too.

13. Strikes and suspension

• An upheld food-safety complaint is a strike for the vendor, and so is an upheld refusal at pickup. It also scores 0 for that order in the vendor’s reliability score.
• Strikes expire after 60 days. One strike brings a warning, two a 48-hour freeze on new listings, and three a 7-day suspension and review.
• Serious risk. We can suspend a vendor or NGO that puts food safety at risk, whatever its strike count.
• Appeals. A strike can be appealed within 24 hours and a suspension within 7 days, and a person reviews every appeal. The full rules are in our Reliability and No-show Policy.

14. Reviewing these rules

The time limits, temperatures and categories will be confirmed with a food-safety adviser or the Islamabad Food Authority before launch, and reviewed as we learn from the pilot. We will email you about any material change at least 14 days before it takes effect. If a safety risk requires a change sooner, we will tell you as soon as we can.

---

Questions about this policy? Email hello@rizqrasan.pk or read our Complaints and Disputes policy.