Assessing the Safety of New Foods and Technologies

Foods and food processing technologies with a long history of use are generally considered safe.  

FSANZ has developed pre-market safety assessments for new foods that have not traditionally been part of our diet (novel foods) and new food processing technologies such as food irradiation and genetically modified food .  

Novel foods, genetically modified foods and irradiated foods cannot be sold in Australia and New Zealand unless they have passed stringent pre-market safety assessments conducted by FSANZ.

The Guidelines for Novel Foods outlines how FSANZ assesses the safety of novel foods in the marketplace.  

FSANZ has developed a fact sheet which describes FSANZ' s safety assessment process for novel foods and new processing technologies.  

The publication, GM foods  and the brochure ' Genetically Modified Foods' provide more information for consumers about the regulation, labelling and safety assessment process for GM foods.  

The  Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code   has provisions which govern the preparation and supply of novel foods, genetically modified foods and irradiated foods.