Industry Body Opposes Better Food Information For Consumers

The Managing Director of the Australia New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA), Mr Ian Lindenmayer, today expressed disappointment with the Australian Food and Grocery Council's (AFGC) opposition to improved consumer information on food labels.

'The proposed Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code will make some important additional information about food readily available to consumers. Instead of being tucked away in the Food Standards Code, in an outdated recipe, the percentage of key ingredients will be available- just where consumers want it - on the food label. This will allow everyone to make an informed choice between competing products based on how much of the key ingredients they contain - but AFGC does not want to have to provide that information,' Mr Lindenmayer said.

'The AFGC says that, instead of labelling requirements, there should just be a rule setting a minimum level of a particular ingredient, such as a specified percentage of fruit in jam. That looks like a reasonable protection but it contains a huge loophole. If you call such a product a 'spread' or a 'spreadable fruit', current standards don't require any minimum fruit content. A quick check in a local supermarket today identified seventy-four jam-like products but only twenty-three were called jam. The new percentage labelling requirement closes that loophole.

'The AFGC also criticises the proposal to remove the minimum percentage of milk fat in ice cream. This overlooks the fact that there is a high level of saturated fat in milk fat and that many people, for health reasons, need to minimise their consumption of saturated fats. The percentage labelling requirement will give people the chance to choose between high and low fat products, depending on their tastes and health needs.

'More and more people are seeking a healthy diet and we have seen a major increase in diet related illness. These labelling reforms will also mandate nutrition labelling on all food products, not just the limited number under the current Food Standards Code. Consumers will have information about the amount of fat, protein, kilojoules, carbohydrate and salt on food labels,' Mr Lindenmayer said.

'It is true that the industry, in one sense, has already voluntarily provided nutrition information labels on some products. This is 'voluntary' however, only in the sense that the current standards require that if a manufacturer wants to make a nutrition claim to promote their products (such as low fat or salt free), they must also provide comprehensive nutrition information. The key issue here is that there are many products that have high fat or salt content which carry no nutrition information whatsoever. Under a voluntary system, consumers would not be given that information.

'There will be also much more detailed information for people with allergies and food intolerances than under the current arrangements,' he said.

'The AFGC raises the spectre of Australia being the subject of a dispute under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules if it implements the proposed labelling requirements. It conveniently overlooks the facts that:

the United States has a nutrition labelling requirement more demanding than the ANZFA proposal; and
the European Union has a percentage labelling system more stringent than the ANZFA proposal.

'Neither of these has been challenged through the WTO disputes process. ANZFA has already notified the WTO and the international community of these proposals during development. Not one of the 160 member countries had raised an objection,' he said.

'Finally, the AFGC says that these labelling requirements will entail more red tape, burdening industry. In fact, the draft new standards represent a huge reduction in the burden on industry by removing the many archaic requirements which have previously specified the recipes to be followed for many foods. Industry must recognise that consumers, too, deserve to get some benefits from the reforms in the form of better information about food.

'The proposed Australia New Zealand Code has been based on rigorous science to ensure the safety of our food and an extensive consultation which showed consumer' wishes to have better information about food. I encourage both consumers and industry to look at the final version of the proposed Code which will be available on our website www.foodstandards.gov.au from 18 September 2000,' Mr Lindenmayer concluded.

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