If you have a problem with food you bought or ate, you can tell someone about it! You can file a complain about food from places like restaurants, food trucks, caterers, grocery stores, or convenience stores. The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA) or your county or local health department can look into your complaint.
Not every food place in Pennsylvania is checked by the PDA. Some counties, like Allegheny, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Erie, Montgomery, and Philadelphia, have their own health departments that check food places in their area. There are also almost 140 local towns and cities that do their own inspections. For example, Delaware County has over 45 local health departments!
If you want to complain about a food place, you can find a list of local health departments and their contact information on the PDA website. If your complaint is about a place that the PDA checks, or if you’re not sure who checks it, you can fill out a Food Safety Complaint Form online.
Make sure to fill out all the information on the form. Your personal information will stay private, so the food place won’t know who made the complaint. This information helps inspectors if they need to ask more questions.
If your complaint is about a packaged food item, like if there’s a problem with the label or something strange inside the package, you should also tell the PDA about that. They will investigate those issues too!
Find Your Local Health Department
PDA maintains a list of current County and Local Health Departments with contact information. If the facility that is the subject of your complaint is located in a county or local health jurisdiction, please contact them directly.