Our Regulatory Measures
Objectives
- Continue to work with our government partners to develop food standards through the bi-national regulatory arrangements.
- Use best regulatory practice in the delivery of food regulatory outcomes.
- Anticipate and work proactively to address new food regulatory challenges.
Our performance
- Number of Applications finalised within statutory timeframes and consistent with Ministerial policy guidelines.
- Timeliness of our management of food emergencies and public health issues arising from food.
- Responsiveness to changes in our processes required by the amended FSANZ Act.
- Implementation of the FSANZ Science Strategy and utilisation of international science and regulatory networks.
Highlights
- 20 Applications and 5 Proposals finalised.
- Mandatory folic acid fortification of bread-making flour project finalised.
- Primary Production and Processing Standard for the dairy industry finalised.
- Trans fatty acids assessment completed.
- Application guidelines and internal procedures revised in line with the amended FSANZ Act.
- Reviews of FSANZ processes for dietary modelling and the safety assessment of genetically modified foods completed.
- Lowest level of food recalled recorded for past five years.
Overview
While the volume of work processed by FSANZ has remained fairly constant since the Food Standards Code was published in 2000, the nature of our work has changed, and continues to change rapidly. We are concentrating more and more on nutrition and public health matters while, at the same time, maintaining our protection of food safety through compositional, labelling and food safety (hygiene) standards.
Mandatory fortification and health claims are two examples of where we are implementing government policy, through the Ministerial Council, to improve the health of the community. This is very time-consuming work, requiring inputs to risk management decisions from many internal and external quarters.
On the food safety front, the work involved with primary production and processing standards has turned out to be significantly greater than expected, with the various primary sectors and the States and Territories applying pressure on FSANZ to deliver a paddock-to-plate approach in the quickest possible timeframe. In the past, the focus was on approving individual food products. This has now shifted to a focus on to an entire sector of the food chain, which is a much more complex and resource-intensive exercise.
Such work requires extensive public debate and consultation with affected stakeholders. We are now allocating an unprecedented proportion of our resources to this task. These public health-related food and primary production standards have far-reaching consequences for the whole population and for international trade. It is therefore not possible to short-circuit the consultation process.
In 2007-08, following release of the revised nutrient reference values earlier this year, we will be assessing every associated value in the Code to see if it should be amended – no small task. We are about to commence work on a review of general labelling requirements in the Code. And we are actively engaged with our regulatory partners on matters of implementation and enforcement, particularly with regard to primary production standards.
Other items on the horizon include a review of allergen labelling, packaging (migration of chemicals from packing to the food), nanotechnology and its implications for the food industry, our present zero-tolerance policy for agricultural and veterinary residues in food unless specific limits are approved, and the addition of substances to food other than vitamins and minerals.
This is a considerable body of work, over and above the processing of Applications to change the Code. The amended FSANZ Act will, to some extent, enable us to streamline our processes. But the complexity of our work remains – and grows.
Additional funding provided in the 2007-08 Australian Budget for the next four years will allow us to retain our present organisational capacity. This is a welcome development that will bring certainty to the agency and the ability to plan for the future.
However, we are a demand-driven organisation, where our work plan for the development of food standards is largely determined by formal Applications from the food industry and consumers, by policy guidance from the Ministerial Council and by emerging public health and safety concerns that require early intervention.
Our capacity to undertake ‘discretionary activities’ – such as reviewing existing standards in the Code – is diminishing. The effects of this may not become apparent for some time, but there is a potential for the scientific evidence base that underpins the Code to become outdated. At present, we claim that food standards are based on the best available science. We may not be able to make that claim if we lose our ability to assess the appropriateness of regulatory measures in the light of advancing scientific knowledge.
Our Science Strategy 2006-09 has been developed with this challenge in mind. It is the cornerstone of initiatives designed to maintain best practice in our regulatory measures. Initiatives under the strategy have already made a positive impact on our scientific evidence base.
Applications and Proposals gazetted 1 July 2006 – 30 June 2007
We gazetted 20 variations to food standards arising from Applications (22 in 2005-06) and 5 variations to food standards arising from Proposals (4 in 2005-06). Further details of these Applications and Proposals appear in Appendix 1, while Appendix 3 summarises our processes for assessing these projects.