A Taste of Wellness for Savoury and Snacks
Givaudan
Australia's parliamentary secretary for health and ageing Christopher Pyne announced today that he will be "pursuing closer identification" of the origins of unpackaged imported foods, and is encouraging the state governments to follow suit.
"This is a matter of ensuring consumer choice. It is important that consumers can buy food confidently, knowing whether it's home grown Australian produce or an imported produce," said Pyne.
At the end of September, Australia and New Zealand's food standards board - FSANZ - will assess a final report on the country of origin labelling, which will then be forwarded to the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council.
"Before finalising this report, FSANZ will be consulting again with consumers, growers, retailers and food manufacturers. I urge any interested parties to register with FSANZ to make sure that they receive their copy of the discussion paper," said Pyne.
According to the parliamentary secretary, the FSANZ consultative process "works well", citing that FSANZ has already dropped one of the proposals following public response: that consumers ask the retailer the origin of unpackaged food.
Consultation on the discussion paper will be from 10 August until 2 September 2005.
Interested parties can register by contacting the FSANZ Standards Liaison Officer. .