Another Country of Origin Labelling inquiry – have your say.
Australians generally want to know where their food has come from and this is a key part of their purchase decision. Many people will not buy a specific product because it came from a country other than Australia.
Therefore Country of Origin Labelling (CoOL) is an important part of the information shown on any food package. The Trade Practices Act requires that a company must provide true information on their packaging, it is therefore essential that the CoOL is correct, so that Australians can make an informed choice about whether to purchase a particular food or not.
There have been numerous reviews of CoOL requirements and their implementation, and another inquiry has just been commenced by the Australian House of Representatives Standing Committee on Agriculture and Industry.
Committees must have terms of reference, the boundaries of the inquiry, and the following are those for this inquiry;
- Whether the current Country of Origin Labelling (CoOL) system provides enough information for Australian consumers to make informed purchasing
- Whether Australia’s CoOL laws are being complied with, and what, if any, are the practical limitations to compliance
- Whether improvements could be made, including to simplify the current system and/or reduce the compliance burden
- Whether Australia’s CoOL laws are being circumvented by staging imports through third countries
- The impact on Australia’s international trade obligations of any proposed changes to Australia’s CoOL laws.
Anyone can make a submission to the Committee about this inquiry by emailing them to agind.reps@aph.gov.au
Submissions must be received by 2 May 2014, and are considered to be evidence, so they will hold parliamentary privilege and cannot be altered or withdrawn with the Committee’s approval.
Approved submissions will be shown on the committee’s website http://www.aph.gov.au/agind, as will all details of the sessions and the public hearings.
This is an opportunity for people to make their thoughts known about CoOL and possibly impacting on changes to laws.
Written by Rachelle Williams – the Green Food Safety Coach
- Published in News
New Product Safety Online Guide
With more and more Australians buying on line rather than in store, the new Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) guide will help retailers get the legal side right. The publication is called “A guide for business: Consumer product safety online’.
Dr Michael Schaper, ACCC Deputy Chair, said; “Australian consumers are increasingly looking to online stores to purchase consumer products but the online environment creates some unique product safety challenges and requirements that online suppliers need to be aware of. The ACCC is concerned that some online sellers, particularly those based overseas, may not be aware that all businesses supplying to Australian consumers have the same obligations under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL).”
It doesn’t matter whether the store is a physical location or on line, the same consumer laws apply and this guide will help retailers meet them.
When it comes to food purchased online, there are specific issues that need to be addressed to ensure that the purchasers and consumers have all the required information to make sure they are safe. This especially applies to the ingredient list so that people know what is in the food, including the presence of the food allergens. So this information needs to be clearly shown on the website so that the purchaser can make an informed choice.
If the required information is not available or the product itself is banned, then product recalls may be required.
Dr Schaper said; “Product recalls can be expensive for a business but the cost of a recall is not the only potential financial consequence to online businesses who supply unsafe products. Penalties can include infringement notices and the ACCC can seek court-imposed penalties of up to $1.1 million for serious breaches.”
The following are just some of the types of compliance tips included in the new guide;
- clearly displaying warnings and product labelling
- using good quality product images
- providing clear product descriptions, including recommended usage and age-grading for children’s products
- checking the requirements of Australian safety standards and bans prior to listing a product available for sale.
The new guide can be found on the ASIC website.
Written by Rachelle Williams – the Green Food Safety Coach
- Published in News
Exotic vegetables are the future
Ok, so many of us would actually be asking what a Gay Choy actually was, let alone planning to buy some and then include them in our everyday cooking.
However, this is just one of the Australian grown but exotic vegetables that are now increasingly making their way onto the plates of those cooking at home.
AuVeg recently released the results of a survey of 1000 people, who had been asked about what vegetables they are eating.
It seems that whilst traditional favourites like potatoes and carrots are not going anywhere, we are looking for new tastes and experiences when it comes to vegetables.
Felicity Powell, AusVeg spokesperson said; This demand could evoke a ‘hipster revolution’ for emerging and underground vegetable varieties. Gay Choy, Taro and Winter Melon are among the lesser-known vegetable varieties of Australian-grown produce. They’re pretty underground, you’ve probably never heard of them, but if you want to spice up the kitchen or add a flavour of the exotic, these are right your alley.”
Whilst Asian vegetables are the type that is increasingly most rapidly, Sweet potato and baby spinach are now fixed items in many homes.
AusVeg believes that this increasing desire for new vegetables is directly related to the popularity of international cuisines like Thai and Vietnamese foods.
Ms Powell said; “This report has shown that emerging vegetable varieties, such as the Tesoro tomato, which is a unique variety of tomato packed full of flavour and yet low in liquid, have huge market potential in Australia.”
This tomato variety is not currently available in Australia, but is on it’s way from the USA, along with other new vegetable varieties for our growers to produce.
Written by Rachelle Williams – the Green Food Safety Coach
- Published in News
Fast Food Chain Report Card
The recent released “emma” (Enhanced Media Metrics Australia) Out of Home Dining Report shows that on average half of the Australian population goes to a fast food (quick serve) chain as many as four times a month (or in other words averaging once a week). This totals at least 51 million visits to the fast food chains a month.
Even though Subway is the biggest quick serve chain in the world, it is McDonalds that tops the list as Australia’s most popular with 42 percent of those surveyed going there during the previous month.
The following were the other four in the top five fast food chains, based on number of visits each month; Subway at 29 percent, KFC on 23 percent, Hungry Jacks reached 16 percent and 11 percent of those surveyed visited a Domino’s Pizza outlet.
The survey identified a number of other findings as well, including the loyalty we have for our favourite fast food chain, with 40 percent of us visiting only one or two chains monthly. Interestingly 52 percent of people surveyed would consider eating at Subway but only 29 percent actually do. It seems we would like to be seen as being good but can’t help ourselves going back to our favourites.
It was also found that even though dining in is an option, more people (30.5 million out of the 51 million visits) prefer to grab a takeaway from the chains. The survey also found there was no difference between men and women in their fast food preferences.
According to the survey, 81 percent of Australians eat out a minimum of once a month and it is cafes are that rule the roost, with 59 percent of people preferring this food choice to any other.
The emma Report is a new technique in Australia, created by Ipsos MediaCT, but has been used in 41 countries, to assess many aspects of the fast food industry.
Simon Wake, Ipsos MediaCT Managing Director said; “Perhaps not surprisingly, it is young people, aged between 14 and 29, that are heaviest users of dining out and takeaway option, with 86 per cent saying they eat out once a month. And they prefer Quick Service Restaurants, with McDonald’s, Subway and KFC topping their preferred brands. One fifth of them eat fast food once a week. Interestingly, less that one fifth of young people feel confident about cooking and only 14 per cent will make an effort to get right nutrition at every meal.”
It was found that the main motivators for making a food choice were convenience and price. Interestingly taste rated only eight percent as the reason for choosing where to eat when out and being healthy achieved only 28 percent.
The level of income did not impact on whether someone would choose a Quick Serve Chain for a meal. However, sales people, labourers and students were the groups most commonly eating at a fast food chain.
Written by Rachelle Williams – the Green Food Safety Coach
- Published in News
Coffee machines are increasing but coffee consumption declining in Australia
In December 2013, 56 percent of Australians were likely to visit a café for a tea or coffee compared to 54 percent three years earlier.
This is just one of the findings from a recent survey conducted by Roy Morgan Research.
Interestingly in December 2013, 44 percent of people had a coffee machine at home or work, This compared to only 38 percent in 2009.
It seems that coffee consumption is on the increase and the number of coffee machines in use is not impacting on the café trade.
However the survey shows that the actual number of cups an Australian adult is consuming has decreased from 10.5 per week to 9.2 in 2013.
So the survey is showing that we have more machines and are visiting cafes more, but have reduced the amount of cups of coffee we are actually drinking. The reason may be as simple as an developing taste for good coffee, in other words we are looking for quality not quantity.
The survey also showed us who are the biggest coffee drinkers in our community. There seems to be a strong relationship between the number of hours someone works and the amount of cups of coffee they drink. The survey showed that longer hours, most likely means more coffee with an average of 10.1 cups per week, compared to only 8.6 cups for those doing less than 39 hours each week.
It wasn’t only the longer hours that resulted in more coffee consumption, the survey also showed that having children increases the number of cups per week. Those with children were drinking 9.6 cups per week in December 2013, compared to only 7.2 cups for those without children. The older the children, the higher the number of cups drunk each week.
Angela Smith, Group Account Manager Consumer Products, Roy Morgan Research; “While it makes sense that people who work long hours would consume more coffee, their need for caffeine goes beyond this, to the point where they also drink more Cola and energy drinks than people who work fewer hours. The news that parents of older children drink more coffee in an average week than those of infants may seem surprising, considering the stereotype of the sleep-deprived new parent, but this is simply a function of age. Our data shows that older people drink more coffee, and parents of older children are typically older than those of infants. Mind you, their extra caffeine requirements might also be linked to the sleep they lose through lying awake at night, worrying about where their kids are or what they’re up to”.
Written by Rachelle Williams – the Green Food Safety Coach
- Published in News
How to get us to eat more vegetables?
The National Health and Medical Research Council nutrition guidelines recommend that adult Australians should be eating five to six serves of vegetables each day to ensure a healthy life. A recent survey of 675 people by AusVeg (the representative body for potato and vegetable growers in Australia) shows that the actual number of serves of vegetables being consumed is only 2.5.
Andrew White, AusVeg Manager of Industry Development and Communications, said; “Also of concern was that the consumers that had kids stated their children were only consuming an average of 2.4 serves of vegetables per day, which is in the lower range of the vegetable intake recommended by the National Health and Medical Research Council of 2 to 5 serves.”
Chips with a fast food meal and salad on the burger do not really count as reasonable serves. There is a perception by some in our community that this is the case. A serve is actually 75grams or half a cup of cooked vegetables. So we should be eating at least 2.5 cups of cooked vegetables each day.
So why are we not eating our vegetables, when we all know that doing so is healthy and good for us?
It is the big question that AusVeg and it’s members are trying to answer. The next obvious question that flows from that, is how can the growers and their organisation encourage us to eat what we should be eating? More vegetable consumption is going to improve overall health for al of us as well as improve the profits of the growers. It is the classic example of a win win, but what needs to happen for it to occur?
Mr White said; “Eating a range of different coloured vegetables may be an easy way to access a higher intake of proteins, iron, some essential fatty acids, dietary fibres, micronutrients, folate and complex carbohydrates, and can also be an enjoyable way to cook and eat.”
Is the answer more marketing of vegetables and their health benefits, or are Australians just so over the amount of information thrown at them daily that they are not getting the message?
A new website “Veggycation” was set up in December 2013 to promote vegetable consumption and the health benefits of doing so. However it then needs to be promoted so that people will go and look at it.
There is also a move to place vegetable related health claims on food packaging to encourage more consumption. However the question is still, are people just over the information bombardment they get every day and therefore may not see this valuable and useful promotion.
We have to eat more vegetables, that is a no brainer, but how to get us to do so is probably the biggest issue for the fruit and vegetable industries right now.
Written by Rachelle Williams – the Green Food Safety Coach
- Published in News
The Front of Pack Labelling discussion goes on and on and on and
The Blewett review of food labelling conducted a few years ago, highlighted that the current way used by the food industry to show how much of certain nutrients are present in a food compared to that allowed for a normal healthy adult, is not working all that well for much of the Australian population.
Therefore one of the Review’s recommendation was some form of front of pack labelling using traffic lights or similar to show the general healthiness of each food.
This concept was agreed to by the Health Ministers around the country, however it was not in the form of traffic lights.
The whole issue has raised nothing short of a furore between the food industry, consumer groups, governments and anyone else who wants to have a say.
Therefore the concept of some form of Health Star Rating has been raised as a suitable alternative. It does not use the daily intake guide (DIG) currently referred to be the food industry, but is based on the Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) nutrient profiling criteria. So it includes; kilojoule, saturated fat, sodium and sugar content, and considers the amount of; protein, fruit, vegetables, fibre and nuts / legumes present in the food.
The star rating system was originally developed in the USA by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and although not the preference of consumer groups in Australia, is more acceptable to the food industry in general than traffic lights.
Obviously the more stars a food has, the healthy it is.
The IOM model displays the energy content (kJ) and then a star rating for each food, like this; 2134kJ 2.5stars.
A website was recently developed by the federal Government including a Health Star rating calculator, however due to political reasons, the website was pulled down a short time later.
In the meantime, Choice has used the Calculator to work out a rating for some of the big names in our supermarkets and the results were not thrilling.
It is important to remember that as the actual amounts of some of the components used in the rating calculation are only available to the product manufacturer in their recipes, the results were based on some estimates.
What was particularly interesting is that there were some significant variations between the products from different manufacturers, as anexample;one peanut butter brand scored 5 stars whilst another only got as high as 3 stars.
Ms Angela Cartwright, CHOICE Campaigns Manager, said; “Our health star snapshot shows that it is possible to have considerably healthier versions of the same type of product. CHOICE thinks the Scheme will not only give consumers information they can use at-a-glance but spur companies to improve their product offerings, creating a healthier food supply in the long term.”
It is now well recognised that some form of front of pack labelling system will most likely make it easier for consumers to compare one product in terms of health with another, but which method it will be and how soon it will finally be agreed to is indeed another issue entirely.
It really is a case of watch this space.
Written by Rachelle Williams – the Green Food Safety Coach
- Published in News
So is the Western diet causing diabetes and Alzheimers?
A recent study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has shown that there is a strong relationship between the consumption of heat processed meat based foods and the onset of both brain changes, like Alzheimers disease, and a pre-diabetes condition.
The research done by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, found that increasing the consumption of these foods, increase the amount of Advanced Glycation Endproducts (AGEs) in the blood, which results in the suppression of a vital defence against both
Alzheimer’s disease and the pre-diabetic state called metabolic syndrome. This defence is called SIRT1, and in mice it was found that in high levels, it helps protects us from the onset of these diseases and conditions.
Many people may not realise but there is a strong co-relation between someone having diabetes and later developing Alzheimers Disease. So anything that reduces the likelihood of diabetes onset will further reduce the possible development of Alzheimers.
Dr Helen Vlassara, MD, Professor and Director of the Division of Experimental Diabetes and Aging in the Brookdale Department of Geriatrics at Mount Sinai said; “Age-associated dementia or Alzheimer’s disease is currently epidemic in our society and is closely linked to diabetes. While more research needs to be done to discover the exact connection of food AGEs to metabolic and neurological disorders, the new findings again emphasise the importance of not just what we eat, but also how we prepare what we eat. By cutting AGEs, we bolster the body’s own natural defense against Alzheimer’s disease as well as diabetes.”
Dr Simon Ridley, Head of Research at Alzheimer’s Research UK said; “Diabetes has previously been linked to an increased risk of dementia, and this small study provides some new insight into some of the possible molecular processes that may link the two conditions. Although these findings add to some earlier evidence linking a decrease in SIRT1 protein to Alzheimer’s, the most common cause of dementia, it’s important to note that the people in this study did not have dementia. This subject has so far not been well-studied in people, and we don’t yet know whether the amount of AGEs in our diet might affect our risk of dementia. The diseases that cause dementia are complex, and our risk of the condition is likely to be affected by a number of genetic and environmental factors that are not yet fully understood.”
So does this mean that a vegetarian diet is what we should all be following? Or does it suggest that we should all be followers of the raw food movement?
The study was done on mice and also a small group of people who did not currently have dementia. It is simply too early to state conclusively if either of these diets choices are where we should all be.
More study needs to be done in this area, before anyone can come close to stating one way or another whether the Western diet should be abandoned. The interesting thing about this is whether people in the west would ever be able to completely and totally give up their cooked meat products, even if it is found eventually that this food may be causing them health issues.
I know of people who have said when they found out that I am a vegetarian, “how could you give up meat?, I could never do that.”
Until the final studies are done and the results are in conclusively, the best option for us all to remain healthy is a little bit of everything in moderation.
Written by Rachelle Williams – the Green Food Safety Coach
- Published in News
Food packaging is safe?
I was running some training for a client recently and a discussion started about the plastic water bottle that one of my students was using. She had finished the juice and had washed out the botlle to use as her water bottle at work.
Half the class were telling her that she should not have done that because of all the bad chemicals in the plastic, which she was now absorbing every time she drank from the reused bottle.
The other half of the class were just as adamantly saying that with all the laws that are now in place in this country, reusing bottles like this is fine and is very good because it also helps the environment due to less waste.
So which argument was correct?
Dr Ian Musgrave, a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine, School of Medicine Sciences, within the Discipline of Pharmacology at the University of Adelaide has commented that “Formaldehyde is also present in many foods naturally, to consume as much formaldehyde as is present in a 100g apple you would need to drink at least 20 litres of mineral water that had been stored in PET bottles. Obviously the concern about formaldehyde from food packaging is significantly overrated, unless we are willing to place ‘potential cancer hazard’ stickers on fresh fruit and vegetables. While we should not be dismissive of the potential for undesirable materials in packaging to migrate into food, the risks are exceptionally small.”
The comments were made after the Food Packaging Forum Foundation claimed that many of the materials in food packaging could leach into the food they contain.
The Food Packaging Forum Foundation (FPFF) is based in Switzerland and aims “to enhance basic understanding of scientific principles and recent scientific findings that are relevant to the field of food packaging health”, through working with scientific experts. The Forum is funded by corporates as well as the European Environment and Health Initiative.
The FPFF suggest that at this point too little is actually known about the potential long term effects of many of the chemicals that are used to make food packaging. The comments about the food contact materials (FCMs), including formaldehyde, were published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health in February2014.
The article recommends that there is an urgent need for population-based assessment and biomonitoring to determine if there is any health issues associated with food packaging.
Dr Oliver Jones, Co-director of the RMIT University Centre of Environmental Sustainability and Remediation agrees with Dr Musgrave and said; “The overwhelming weight of scientific opinion (including that from Food Standards Australia and New Zealand) is that there is no health or safety issue from these chemicals at the levels people are exposed to. More research is always welcome from a scientist’s point of view, but I would hazard a guess that the high levels of fat, sugar and salt in a lot of today’s processed food are more of a health concern than any migration of chemicals from the packaging.”
So it seems that, as with the two groups in my class, even the experts have differing opinions.
Written by Rachelle Williams – the Green Food Safety Coach
- Published in News