NZ won’t follow Australia over food labelling
Govt sticks to a voluntary code citing cost as issue with country-of-origin labelling. Gerard Hutching reports.
While Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has threatened to toughen up product labelling in the wake of a Hepatitis A outbreak from frozen berries imported from China, the New Zealand Government has no plans to follow suit.
Most countries have mandatory country-of-origin labelling to let consumers know where food comes from.
The Government prefers a voluntary code, although it has not developed one for companies and retailers to adopt. Food Safety Minister Jo Goodhew said she had ‘‘nothing to add’’ on the Government’s policy.
Abbott said it was the responsibility of businesses ‘‘not to poison their customers’’ after 18 people tested positive for Hepatitis A.
Horticulture New Zealand says New Zealand is one of the few countries that does not have mandatory country-oforigin labelling. ‘‘The Aussies care about where their food comes from. So they have laws in place to make sure people get that information. We don’t,’’ HortNZ communications manager Leigh Catley said.
A Ministry for Primary Industries spokeswoman said the berries sold in Australia had not been exported to New Zealand. ‘‘As a precautionary measure, MPI identified and contacted all importers of frozen berry products from China and Chile within the last 18 months to see if there is any cause for concern,’’ the spokeswoman said.
Countdown Supermarkets said they had a voluntary Country of Origin labelling on all own-brand products as well as fresh and single ingredient whole foods. ‘‘This includes detailing where any imported ingredients are sourced from because rather than simply state that a product contains local and/or imported ingredients, we think it’s important that customers are informed and able to make their own choices,’’ a spokeswoman said.
A 2011 survey found almost 50 per cent of respondents wanted to know where food came from.
Critics of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, which aims to free up trade among Pacific Rim nations, have argued that countries will have to stop country-of-origin labelling to be part of the accord.
In a statement to Fairfax Media, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed that is the case.
‘‘New Zealand’s position is that mandatory Country of Origin Labelling can create unjustified costs and risks while producing relatively minor or difficult-to-quantify benefits,’’ it said. These costs included verifying and auditing, and price increases passed on to consumers. The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research carried out a cost benefit/analysis in 2005, showing a mandatory scheme would cost $60 million, because producers would have to change labels. But Catley said companies changed their product labelling all the time for all sorts of reasons, including marketing campaigns.
Opponents of country-of-origin labelling decry it as an international trade barrier, but Catley said consumer demand for information outweighed the trade argument. She said New Zealand should at least match Australia’s policy, which states any food product must identify the country of origin of whatever makes up more than 50 per cent of the total production cost of the product.
The NZIER has also argued mandatory labelling would deprive consumers of choice, because some overseas producers might not export to New Zealand if they could not meet the code.