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Dairy Australia Regulatory and Policy Manager – Nutrition Dr Malcolm Riley was in Europe recently to address a dairy industry meeting. dairy innovation Editor Geoff Platt spoke to him about labelling legislation in Australia (issue 18 – June 2008). They spoke a few days before the Government was due to comment on plans for changes to food labelling.

“The most important thing in Australia at the moment is the government mandated nutritional information panel. This is a compositional panel that is required to be on the back of every pack and it has a standard format so there is no discretion about how it is to be presented. The information is presented as specific nutrients per 100g and specific nutrient per serve.”

And the serve is formulated by the company not the government, said Dr Riley.

“The nutrients include fat, saturated fat, sodium, sugar and any nutrients about which you make a claim on the pack (such as iron), so we have a quite liberal regime in regard to nutrient claims but – we think – the Australian government is coming to the final stages of developing a food standard for health claims.

“The front of pack is mainly left to the company to do with what they will and some companies have developed similar sort of symbols to the GDAs (Guideline Daily Amounts) you have in the UK. But I think that is mainly a strategy to pre-empt anything the government might impose.”

Riley said the Australian government was certainly doing a review of dietary guidance. “I think the Australian regulators are looking closely as what happens in the UK, as they did with the health claims.”

The recommendations the government has been studying have been prepared by the Food Standards Authority Australia and New Zealand – and the government will either accept them or say that some aspects need to go for further review.

“We accept it is a very difficult job but we are disappointed in the dairy industry because some cheese are recommended to be allowed to carry health claims and some are not – which is likely to be very confusing for consumers.”

The regulators have told Dr Riley that they would like companies to change the formulation of their products – and the same with milks. Most milks are able to carry health claims, but some don’t. The milk people have been drinking on their breakfast cereal for years and years does not carry a health claim – but others do. “I doubt whether they ever thought there was anything different about their milk.

Extraordinary

“We have talked extensively with the regulators and they have taken on board some of the points. They did accommodate the trend towards adding things to milk like Omega-3 and phytosterols and they made an adjustment to allow those to carry health claims. It would have been extraordinary if those type of foods were not allowed to carry health claims.

“Why would you add phytosterols if you could not tell people why it was good for them.”

But the industry is disappointed about cheese. The man from Dairy Australia pointed out that cheese is basically concentrated milk. “Their response was that they had made a category for concentrated foods and cheese was too salty. Cheese does have a lot of salt but that is an issue for the industry. So we will see where that happens.”

Dairy, as well as other food industry sectors, has been involved in extensive consultations with the relevant authorities. “They met with us in the general consultation and they came to us for specific consultation – we were able to get them to come and talk to us and dairy companies and it was a pretty open discussion. They have been pretty transparent about what they do, but of course it does not mean that they do what we want them to do.”

There is a further problem in Australia because enforcement is not down to the Foods Standards Agency, but to the State Governments. “And we have had cases of different States applying the law in different ways – one State says something is OK and another State says it is not.”

It is a big issue for dairy because the industry stretches across State boundaries.

The States recognise it is an issue and central Government has formed a committee that deals with difference of opinion, but they do not deal with individual differences of opinion - only general principles. There is no court of arbitration to decide who is right and who is wrong. “What will be interesting is that the extent to which States will differ when it comes to substantiation (of health claims).”

The recommendations have gone to both the Australian and New Zealand Governments – who, as far as possible, we have harmonised food standards. “There are areas where they are not quite the same and there are occasions when the New Zealand government might move at a different pace to the Australian government.”

Certainly health claims have been a difficult area and a grey area, comments Dr Riley. “For us it goes beyond labelling to websites, brochures, adverts – an important area for Dairy Australia because part of our remit is to promote the health benefits of dairy. We cannot really promote the health benefits without making health claims.”

Both Australia and New Zealand are big exporters of dairy. Another complication? “Some of the commodities are exported in bulk so they are repackaged in the countries they are going to, but others are already packed so are required to meet the label requirements of the country they are going to.

“We work with Codex committees to try and have a result that is good for the industry. Obviously we are intensely interested in what happens at a Codex level and what happens in the individual countries. And what has been of interest over the last couple of years is what individual countries do about trans fat. Often they do not have a good understanding about trans fat and they will make a decision that has unforeseen consequences. For example, no food is allowed to enter Korea that has trans fat, not realising of course that there is trans fat in the meat we export.

“And on top of that there is the complication of having to translate documents.”