The council's environmental health team has been encouraging food business operators to voluntarily put food control plans in place, including offering free coaching sessions.
The plans require premises to keep a detailed daily record of cleaning, maintenance, food safety and training.
The push has resulted in the council being the territorial authority with the second-highest uptake of the plans in the country (62% of the eligible food businesses). Only one of Dunedin's 727 food premises has been issued a ''D'' grade so far this year, compared with eight for the whole of last year.
Council senior environmental health officer Wayne Boss said the council had been pushing uptake of the plans for about three years and it seemed to be working.
The figures had dropped from 23 D grades in 2009. In the same period, the percentage of Dunedin food premises graded A had risen from 42% to 61%.
Although his team had gone down by one person in the past year, the number of inspections had remained at the same level, meaning there must be a general improvement in health and safety practices among operators.
Having worked one-on-one with many of the 341 food premises that had already opted to take on a food control plan had probably assisted with that, he said.
The effort by the operators and the council also put Dunedin well ahead of the eight-ball, with the plans expected to become compulsory in food reforms likely to take effect by this summer.
Mr Boss said the council welcomed recent news that the Food Bill was expected to be in place earlier than expected.
It was good news, not only because Dunedin was so prepared, but because New Zealand's food safety regulations had not been reformed since the 1980s.
The council is second in voluntary uptake of the plans only to the Kawerau District Council, which has 67% uptake but also significantly fewer food premises.
The Queenstown-Lakes District Council is the fifth-top council to have food control plans in place, with 36% of premises having one.
A D grade is issued to premises having a serious issue with conduct or practices, cleaning, structure and maintenance and/or staff training.
Premises can be closed or remain open. Premises graded D are revisited within 72 hours, and regularly after that until they return to an acceptable standard.
The numbers (as at last week)
727: Food premises in Dunedin
550: Food premises that will potentially require a food control plan
341: Food premises that have voluntarily taken up a food control plan
So far in 2013:
456: A grades (62%)
169: B grades (23%)
30: C grades (4%)
1: D grade (0.13%)
Remainder ungraded
Top five councils with food control plans
Kawerau district (67%)
Dunedin (62%)
Whangarei district (46%)
Wellington (43%)
Queenstown-Lakes district (36%)
