Unsafe Municipal Water: What a Food Business Must Do

When your municipality warns that tap water is unsafe, stop using it for anything that touches food, drinks, ice, hands or food contact surfaces, switch to water you can prove is potable, and record what you did. If you cannot get enough safe water for handwashing and washing up, stop handling open food until you can.

That is not a theoretical rule this month. Water from the Bronkhorstspruit Water Treatment Works in Tshwane was not chlorinated from 24 September to 14 October 2026, and residents were not warned. By 26 October the Minister of Water and Sanitation had reported 833 cases of stomach illness, 328 of them in children under four. According to the joint government statement of 19 October, the NICD found norovirus, Campylobacter and Shigella in three of four stool specimens, and Department of Water and Sanitation tests found extremely high levels of Escherichia coli and total coliforms in the water.

Every takeaway, bakery, school kitchen, butchery and spaza shop on that supply had to make the same decisions in a hurry. This guide sets them out in order, so that you can make them calmly the next time a notice lands in your town.

If you want this written down for your own site before the next notice, our Utilities, Water, Air, Steam and Lighting Risk Assessment Template gives you a scored, ready to complete water risk assessment for R690.

What does the law say about water on food premises?

The Regulations Governing General Hygiene Requirements for Food Premises, the Transport of Food and Related Matters (R638 of 2018) define “water” as potable water that complies with SANS 241, the national drinking water specification. Regulation 5(3) then requires food premises to have a wash up facility with hot and cold water, handwashing facilities and an adequate supply of that water. So the legal test is whether the water is safe to drink, and water running from the tap does not meet it on its own.

The municipality carries its own duty. Regulation 5 of the Compulsory National Water and Sanitation Services Standards, in force since June 2025, requires it to issue a drinking water quality advisory notice when its water fails the SANS 241 health limits: a boil water notice, or a do not use notice when boiling will not make the water safe. The notice must say what the risk is and where, what the municipality is doing, what the public must do, and when things are expected to return to normal. In Bronkhorstspruit that warning came late. What you control is how quickly your own premises respond once you know.

Which water uses must stop when municipal water is declared unsafe?

Treat every use where water reaches the mouth, the food or a surface food will touch as stopped until you have a safe supply:

• Drinking water for staff and customers, including jugs on tables and water for coffee and tea urns that do not boil.
• Ice from your own ice machine, and ice bought from anyone who cannot show you what water they used.
• Washing fruit, salad and vegetables that are served raw, and soaking dried beans or samp.
• Cooking water, dough and batter water, ice and water added to mince, boerewors and polony, brines and marinades, and water used to make up juices, cordials, soft serve mixes, powdered drinks, icings and glazes.
• Handwashing basins, the final rinse of dishes, utensils and chopping boards, and diluting sanitiser.
• Post mix and coffee machines plumbed straight into the mains.

Uses that never touch food, such as flushing toilets, can carry on. That is what Tshwane allowed: the tap water in the affected area is restricted to toilet flushing until it is declared safe again.

Is boiling enough, or do you need bottled or tanker water?

Boiling depends on what is wrong with the water. The World Health Organization’s technical brief on boiling water explains that bringing water to a rolling boil kills or inactivates the bacteria, viruses and protozoa that cause waterborne illness, even in cloudy water. It does not remove chemical contamination, and it can concentrate some chemicals slightly as water evaporates.

That is why the instruction in Bronkhorstspruit went further than a normal boil water notice. Health authorities said the water should not be drunk or used for cooking, washing or bathing, even after boiling. When the official instruction is stricter than the textbook, follow the instruction. Your records should show which notice applied, on which date, and what you did about it.

Boiling is also impractical at volume: nobody boils and cools 300 litres a day on a kitchen stove during a lunch rush. The realistic options are sealed bottled water from a reputable supplier, water from a municipal or approved private tanker, or a borehole or stored supply with a recent laboratory result. In Tshwane, private tanker operators needed municipal environmental health approval before they could deliver, so ask any supplier for that approval in writing. For stored water, our guide to food testing laboratories explains which tests to ask for.

How much safe water does a small food business need each day?

Work it out before you need it. Take a chicken and chips takeaway in Zithobeni with six staff serving about 250 meals a day, and estimate each use:

Daily safe water for a 250 meal takeaway

Use	Litres a day
Staff drinking water, 6 people at 2 litres	12
Food preparation and cooking, including washing and soaking chips	60
Handwashing, 6 people, 20 washes each, about half a litre a wash	60
Washing and rinsing utensils and dishes	80
Final rinse of food contact surfaces	40
Total	252
With a 25 percent margin	315

Buying in frozen pre cut chips and pre packed coleslaw from a supplier with safe water, and dropping fresh salads and iced drinks until the notice lifts, cuts this figure and the risk at the same time.

This site needs a clean, covered, food grade container of at least 500 litres with a tap, filled every day from a supply it can prove is safe. Heat water from it for washing up, because R638 requires hot and cold water at the wash up facility. Empty, clean and sanitise the container at least weekly, never top up stale water, and log each fill.

If the site has to buy bottled water at the R5 for five litres one Bronkhorstspruit resident told the Mail and Guardian she pays, 315 litres costs about R315 a day, or about R9,450 over 30 days. Free municipal tankers aimed at about 15 litres per person per day, which is household water, not a business supply.

That figure, and the supplier you will call, belong in a written water risk assessment. Our RA09 template costs R690, less than three days of bottled water for this site, and gives you the register to record them in before you need it.

If the numbers do not work, stop handling open food and sell sealed, pre packed goods until they do. Our guide on what to do when there is no water at all covers that decision in more detail.

What should the person in charge do in the first hour?

1. Confirm the notice. Read the municipality’s or health department’s own statement, note the date, the areas and the exact instruction, and file a copy.
2. Stop the uses listed above and put a clear sign on every tap, ice machine and plumbed machine that may not be used.
3. Discard water you stored from the tap since the problem began. The 19 October statement told residents to discard stored water and disinfect containers with household bleach before refilling from a safe supply.
4. Quarantine, then discard food. Move anything made, washed or diluted with suspect water since the problem started to one marked area and record each decision. Anything with no cooking step after the water went in, such as ice, juices, soft serve, salads, icings and cold drinks, goes in the bin. Frozen stock counts too: freezing does not kill norovirus.
5. Switch to the safe supply and log every delivery: date, volume, supplier and any test or approval document.
6. Brief every shift. Handwashing still happens, with safe water, soap and paper towel. Alcohol hand gel is not a substitute, because it works poorly against norovirus. Our guide to when and how food handlers must wash their hands makes a good five minute talk.
7. Watch your own people. Anyone with diarrhoea or vomiting stays off food handling, and a common rule is until 48 hours after symptoms stop. If a customer complains of illness, follow the first 24 hours after a food poisoning complaint.

Not every cluster of stomach illness is the water. At Rhodes University in Makhanda, where 111 students fell ill, the Eastern Cape health authorities ruled out food and water contamination after laboratory investigations. Keep your records factual and leave the cause to the investigators.

How do you restart safely when the notice is lifted?

The municipality declaring the water safe at the treatment works does not clean your pipes, tanks or machines. Before you go back to the mains:

1. Run every tap for at least five minutes, then check free chlorine at the tap with a DPD test kit. SANS 241 caps free chlorine at 5 mg/L, and a reading of zero means the water has no disinfection left.
2. Discard mains water stored since the problem started, then clean and sanitise the storage tanks. Drain and flush the geyser.
3. Empty and sanitise the ice machine, change its filter and throw away its first batches. Change filters on coffee and post mix machines, and clean the carbonators and drink dispensers.
4. Strip and clean soft serve machines, and drain and sanitise bakery water chillers and metering tanks.
5. Sample the tap you use most for E. coli and total coliforms, and keep using the safe supply until the result comes back, usually 24 to 48 hours.

Write it all down. That record is what an EHP, an auditor or a customer’s lawyer will ask for. When water comes up, a food safety auditor will usually ask for your potability results, your water distribution plan and your water risk assessment. Our RA09 template gives you the scored register, procedure and completion guide: add your back up supply, daily volume and restart steps from this article, and review it every year and after every incident.

Questions we are often asked

Can a restaurant stay open when the municipal water is unsafe?

Only if it has an adequate supply of water it can prove is potable for food preparation, handwashing and washing up, as R638 requires. If it cannot get enough safe water, it should stop handling open food until it can. Selling sealed, pre packed goods is a defensible fallback.

Is boiled tap water safe to use in a food business?

A rolling boil kills the bacteria, viruses and protozoa that cause waterborne illness, but it does not remove chemicals. If the authorities say not to use the water even after boiling, as they did in Bronkhorstspruit, follow that instruction.

Can we use our own ice machine during a water warning?

No. Switch it off, label it and buy sealed ice from a supplier who can show the water it uses is safe. Freezing does not kill norovirus, Shigella or Campylobacter. When the warning is lifted, empty, clean and sanitise the machine, change its filter and discard the first batches.

What does SANS 241 allow for E. coli?

SANS 241 sets E. coli or faecal coliforms at not detected per 100 mL as an acute health limit, and total coliforms at 10 or fewer per 100 mL as an operational limit.