The Retail Industry Working Group of the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) has been working for the last three years to prepare an industry plan for crisis management. The Group includes major retailers, manufacturers and governments, and has a broad view of the potential impacts a natural disaster or crisis will have on the …
Continue reading ...The current Swine Flu scare has highlighted the need for all of us to have a plan for managing a crisis when it occurs. This includes food businesses and means that each must have documented procedures for handling events such as;
Recalls
Tampering
Returns
Fire
Evacuation
Hold ups
Bomb threats
Loss of key staff
Computer system failure
All manufacturers, wholesalers, importers and …
Continue reading ...Steviol glycosides are a group of very strong sweeteners extracted from the leaves of the Stevia rebaudiana plant. They have been found to be around 250 times sweeter than sugar.
Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) has approved the use of this sweetener (stevia) for use as an ingredient in food and beverages in both Australia …
The Organic Federation of Australia (OFA) has received more than 900 comments on the draft of the new Australian Standard for Organic and Biodynamic Products.
A high number of submissions / comments for a draft standard was previously considered to be 60, so the huge interest in this Standard has the Chair of the OFA, Andre …
The following is the latest information from the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council meeting held on Friday, 1 May 2009 in Sydney. It is supplied with permission from Food Standards Australia New Zealand. For more information go to www.foodstandards.gov.au.
Comprehensive Review of Food Labelling Law and Policy
The meeting agreed to the Terms of …
Standard registration, for this year’s Australian Packaging Awards are open until 19 June, with early bird discounts available to 22 May. Samples of the registered packaging must be received by no later than 10 July.
The awards will be presented at the Presentation Dinner in October. At previous ceremonies the awards have featured packaging from within …
Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP) is being used more and more within the food industry. It involves the use of specially developed packaging materials combined with a change in the internal atmosphere in the package to achieve prolonged shelf life of the product, whilst maintaining high quality.
Air is removed from the package and is replaced with …
A functional food is similar to conventional foods in appearance or taste, but has researched properties which, when consumed as part of a normal diet, have beneficial health effects.
Consumers are increasingly interested in having foods that not only satisfy nutritional needs but have disease prevention or health enhancing effects as well. Manufacturers are recognizing this …