THE HON TRISH WORTH MP
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for
Health and Ageing
19 December 2002
NEW AUSTRALIA WIDE FOOD STANDARDS CODE STARTS TOMORROW
The new joint Food Standards Code for Australia and New Zealand comes into force from midnight tonight for all foods manufactured on or after 20 December 2002.
Parliamentary Secretary for Health, Trish Worth, said the new Food Standards Code is good news for Australian and New Zealand consumers, because nearly all manufactured food will now show details of kilojoules, protein, fat, saturated fat, carbohydrate, sugar and sodium (salt).
“Diet related disease accounts for 25% of Australia’s and New Zealand’s total burden of disease and costs the health system between $341 million and $486 million each year,” Ms Worth said.
“I urge consumers to make active use of this new nutrition information in the fight against diet related diseases like heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) has prepared a range of material to help consumers use the new labels including the Shopper's Guide to Food Additives and Labels which is available from most bookshops.
“I hope that educational institutions will play a major role in ensuring that young people learn how to read labels correctly so they can make sensible nutritional choices. Material has also been prepared for schools. Last March, I launched a schools video prepared by Video Education Australasia and the ABC educational unit has filmed material for their schools programs to go to air in 2003.”
Ms Worth said the new food labels ensure that consumers have more information on the major allergens which now must be labelled, however small the amount. There will also be information about the percentage of the main (characterising) ingredient so consumers will know how much meat is in their meat pie or strawberry in their strawberry jam.
“Not all the advantages in the new Food Standards Code are for consumers. There are also considerable benefits for the food industry. Industry has been freed up to be innovative as there are no longer prescriptive, old-fashioned, recipé based standards,” Ms Worth said.
“Food standards are now the same in Australia and New Zealand. This has opened up a wider market for food producers in both countries. March 2003 sees the 20th anniversary of the Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement between Australia and New Zealand. The joint Food Standards Code for both countries is an important outcome of that Agreement.”
Ms Worth congratulated the food industry for making these labelling changes by the deadline.
“This has not been a simple task. It is pleasing that the overwhelming majority of food businesses have ensured that their products met the new requirements,” Ms Worth said.
The new Food Standards Code can be viewed on the FSANZ website www.foodstandards.gov.au or www.foodstandards.govt.nz or it can be purchased from the legal publishers Anstat by calling (03) 9278 1145. The Shopper's Guide to Food Additives and Labels is available from all major bookstores in Australia and New Zealand and there is a wide range of consumer material on the FSANZ website.
The consumer poster, ' Food labels: what do they mean' , describes the new labelling requirements.