The former operators of two juice outlets in Victoria have been hit with penalties from the Federal Court for deliberately exploiting employees, some of whom were under the age of 18.

An employer has been penalised for taking adverse action against an employee over her sex and pregnancy, by refusing to allow her to return to work after a period of unpaid leave to have and care for her first child.

There are no winners from this incident in which a café worker suffered serious burns, the business owner lost her business and now faces potential fines up to $1.8m.

Governments have an important role to play in food safety to ensure it gets the attention and investment it deserves, according to a senior food standards officer with the Codex Alimentarius secretariat.

Great products are nothing if they don’t translate into money, as the latest business to go under the microscope of The Mentor knows only too well, after Mark Bouris likened the directors to “a couple of 16-year-olds” goofing off.

Eventually the health authorities and the courts run out of patience and the result is a small business is placed in dire financial circumstances by the fines imposed by the court for failing to protect the public.

This story is at the extreme end of breaching food safety obligations. To not only ignore fixing the breaches, ignore orders to close the business and keep trading is bizarre behaviour.

With various lobby groups such as the Health Consumers Alliance of SA and Consumers SA lobbying for more consistent and transparent enforcement of food safety standards it is only a matter of time before change is implemented.