ANZFA Evaluation Strategy 2001-2003
May 2002
Implementation Report for the Evaluation Strategy: January 2001 to October 2002
Executive summary
The Australia New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA) has responsibility for undertaking a scientific and technical evaluation of the impact of implementing new food regulatory measures. The aim of the ANZFA Evaluation Strategy and associated activities is to assess the impact of implementing new regulatory measures for stakeholders. In undertaking this work, the objectives of the review and those stated in the ANZFA Act will be referenced. The evaluation process will also include an evaluation of the impact of ANZFA material such as user guidelines and fact sheets that support the new standards.
The new regulatory measures to be included in the evaluation process are the new Joint Food Standards Code (new Code) adopted in November 2000 and gazetted in December 2000; the Novel Foods Standard adopted in June 2001, the Standard for Foods Produced using Gene Technology to be adopted in December 2001; and the Food Safety Standards that can be adopted by Australian States and Territories from 24 February 2001.
The review of the old Food Standards Code and New Zealand Regulations resulted in many regulatory changes, some major, some minor. It is neither possible nor necessary to undertake an evaluation of the impact of all these changes on stakeholder groups and on how they further the objectives of the ANZFA Act. Key regulatory changes have been identified for which the effect of their implementation on stakeholders needs to be evaluated. These are: key labelling changes (mandatory nutrition labelling, percentage labelling, allergen labelling and date marking against the context of general labelling requirements); Australian national Food Safety Standards; and the change from a prescriptive to a generic, horizontal food additive standard.
Six evaluation activities are outlined in this document that, if initiated during the transition period from December 2000 to December 2002, will provide benchmark data that address critical data gaps and enable a full evaluation in the future of the impact of changing the key food regulatory measures identified above. All evaluation activities outlined in this document, and the decision-making processes that underpin them, will be conducted in a clear and transparent manner such that review by an external group in the future would be possible, if this were to be required.
Existing programs within ANZFA may monitor the impact of other changes arising from implementation of new regulatory measures. For example, it is intended to monitor the effect of deleting four heavy metals from the metal contaminant standards by means of the total diet surveys in each country, subject to funding for these projects.
It is intended that the recommendations arising from evaluation activities will feed into the planning cycle and be considered in future decisions on food regulation. These recommendations will be forwarded to the ANZFA Board for information and final reports on the outcomes will be made available to the public on the ANZFA website (www.food standards.gov.au /mediaandpublications ).
Recommendations that may influence broad policy issues will also be forwarded to the Food Regulation Standing Committee (FRSC) or the Food Standards Development and Implementation Sub-Committee (DISC) for their information, in recognition of these committees' interest in the development of a broad policy framework for food standards setting.
Implementation Report for the Evaluation Strategy: January 2001 to October 2002