Food Standards Australia New Zealand say they will investigate clearer food labelling in response to the worldwide problem of obesity.
Front of Pack Nutrition Labelling System
Food labelling was on the agenda of the October meeting of the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council.
They discussed the issue and agreed to ask ftheir Standing Committee to explore it further and report to the Council at its next meeting. The report will advise whether a uniform front-of-pack food labelling system would be an effective health strategy. It will also advise on the efficacy of a range of options for such a labelling system. These options may include the traffic light labelling system, the behavioural labelling system or any other options.
Read more: Communique, Department of Health and Ageing, 25 Oct 2006
South Australia leads national bid for better food labelling
“States and territories, and the Commonwealth voted today for food authorities to investigate introducing the traffic light system for food packaging across Australia following a push by South Australia.”
Read more: Press release, South Australian government, 25 Oct 2006
FOE comments
FOE made a recommendation about food labelling in our our submission to the Health Select Committee Inquiry into Obesity. We recommended that “a compulsory ‘traffic light’ food labelling system that indicates the extent to which individual food products should be part of a healthy diet be introduced into New Zealand.”
Read more about this in our submission (section 7.6) (PDF)