ANOTHER FOOD PACK LABELING INITIATIVE-WILL IT WORK?

Scouting for good but healthy foods is a nightmare for many families visiting a supermarket where thousands of products are presented as attractively as possible tempting the buyers to pick them up. While the price tag and expiry date weigh heavily in making purchase decisions so often, some discerning buyers do glance through the nutrition labeling though it is far from clear as to how much they really understand! Food safety authorities world over deserve kudos for putting in place a "front of the pack"  labeling regime that is helpful to millions of consumers to have a better understanding about the contents of the pack before making actual purchase and over the years the system is progressively being modified to make it more and more transparent and consumer friendly. Still attempts are going on in some parts of the world to bring about more clarity and in one such attempt in Australia, a new type of labeling guideline is being introduced to enable the consumer to decide at the first sight itself how healthy the product is without being forced to spend time and efforts to read through the fine printed information presently in vogue. This system is based on a system of star rating and following critique gives an idea about its mode of working and logistics of implementation.

The introduction of an easy-to-understand food labelling system was a key recommendation of the 2011 Blewett review of food labelling commissioned by the federal government. But reaching consensus on the best system to implement has been difficult. Food manufacturers have voluntarily adopted their industry's own percentage daily intake (%DI) labelling scheme since 2006. But the scheme doesn't meet the Blewett review's requirement for an "interpretive" system. The daily intake system only presents information about the contribution that a single serve of food makes to the "average" person's daily dietary requirement. It has been criticised as being confusing for consumers, and potentially misleading. The Blewett review specifically recommended traffic-light labelling, which uses green, amber and red to show, at a glance, the relative healthiness of products, as the preferred scheme. The recommendation was strongly supported by public health groups. But traffic-light labels are vociferously opposed by industry, primarily because food manufacturers don't want to put red (negative) labels on their products. By the end of 2011, the federal government had rejected the call to implement traffic-light labelling. This was widely seen as government caving in to lobbying pressure from the food industry, which has been extremely active in its campaign against traffic-light labelling, both in Australia and internationally. In an effort to develop a labelling system that could be supported by all parties, the federal government established a multi-sectoral committee to work on a proposal for a new scheme in 2012. In May 2013, this committee finalised their recommendations for the health star system. The scheme is based on a system proposed by the US Institute of Medicine. Under the proposed system, processed foods will be labelled using a scale ranging from half a star (least healthy) to five stars (healthiest). The front of food packages will also have an icon showing the number of kilojoules in the product, and nutrient information on saturated fat, sodium and sugars. Only the kilojoules in the product will be expressed in terms of recommended daily intake.Foods that are considered healthy (using government-defined criteria) will also be able to list a single "positive" nutrient (such as calcium) icon on the front of the package. And the standard nutrition information panel that is currently displayed on the back of the pack would remain in place. The system will initially be voluntary, and implementation is expected to be accompanied by a government-sponsored marketing campaign to explain and promote it.

Though on paper it looks really good, implementing the same will be a hard job because of the difficulties involved in assigning stars to thousands of products with different chemical and nutrient composition. Still it should be possible to implement the new guidelines in cooperation with the industry. Since the star rating system is voluntary at present there may not be any serious hiccups during the initial period as most products with good health credentials will queue up for getting the coveted star rating and once products start appearing in the market with the health star icons printed on the front, a positive force is likely to be unleashed that will push more and more manufacturers into the star rating system. When fully implemented the market environment may become so sanitized that bad and unhealthy packed foods would probably disappear from the shelves sooner than later! One aspect about this new policy which cannot be appreciated is that the government does not want to make it mandatory in the interest of its citizens. Probably industry may eventually be forced to implement the star grading system by mandatory policy compulsions.    

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

AT LAST AN ANGEL APPEARS FOR TRANSPARENCY IN LABELING IN THE US!

By now world over it has become a common belief that the fight between the consumer and the Biotech Industry turning out monstrous GM foods is an unequal one and the latter can never win this "war" for justice. It was only recently that Californian voters were "bribed" through a 45 million dollar brain washing blitzkrieg to defeat narrowly an innocuous proposition calling for mandatory declaration of use of GM ingredients in food products like all other countries in this planet do! Massive march of common men and women from New York to Washington D C last year to appeal/beg/beseech their President to ask the food industry to come clean on use of controversial GM food ingredients in American foods seems to have no effect on the politicians in that country who are under the mesmerizing influence of the Biotech industry! Against such a background the bold decision taken by a large food retailer in that country to break ranks with the apologists of GM foods is music to the ears of millions of American citizens who are overly concerned about the health of the future generations fed on a wide spectrum of GM foods. Here is a take on this important development.

"A. C. Gallo, president of Whole Foods, said the new labeling requirement, to be in place within five years, came in response to consumer demand. "We've seen how our customers have responded to the products we do have labeled," Mr. Gallo said. "Some of our manufacturers say they've seen a 15 percent increase in sales of products they have labeled." Genetically modified ingredients are deeply embedded in the global food supply, having proliferated since the 1990s. Most of the corn and soybeans grown in the United States, for example, have been genetically modified. The alterations make soybeans resistant to a herbicide used in weed control, and causes the corn to produce its own insecticide. Efforts are under way to produce a genetically altered apple that will spoil less quickly, as well as genetically altered salmon that will grow faster. The announcement ricocheted around the food industry and excited proponents of labeling. "Fantastic," said Mark Kastel, co-director of the Cornucopia Institute, an organic advocacy group that favors labeling. The Grocery Manufacturers Association, the trade group that represents major food companies and retailers, issued a statement opposing the move. "These labels could mislead consumers into believing that these food products are somehow different or present a special risk or a potential risk," Louis Finkel, the organization's executive director of government affairs, said in the statement. Mr. Finkel noted that the Food and Drug Administration, as well as regulatory and scientific bodies including the World Health Organization and the American Medical Association, had deemed genetically modified products safe. The labeling requirements announced by Whole Foods will include its 339 stores in the United States and Canada. Since labeling is already required in the European Union, products in its seven stores in Britain are already marked if they contain genetically modified ingredients. The labels currently used show that a product has been verified as free of genetically engineered ingredients by the Non GMO Project, a nonprofit certification organization. The labels Whole Foods will use in 2018, which have yet to be created, will identify foods that contain such ingredients".

It takes courage and conviction to swim against the tide and the action of this retail chain is all the more praise worthy considering the stakes involved. Of course they are truthful in stating that their action is guided by the desire of most of their customers who wanted such labeling and their business is expected to expand by 15% within a short span of time. One point that may disappoint some is the time frame given viz 5 years to bring about this changed policy. It has to be admitted that unilateral action in putting GM label on products made by hundreds of suppliers is not an easy task and the 5 year time frame appears to be reasonable if this aspect is considered. The unfortunate American consumer must be happy that such a trend is visible during their life time, after giving up any hope that the GM food industry would ever oblige them by making the labeling truly transparent as the law has intended.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

MORE TRANSPARENCY IN MEAT LABELING-NEW US INITIATIVE

It has been a mystery as to why meat products made in the US never had labels declaring the nutritional content while all packed foods carried such information on the front of the pack  conspicuously. Interestingly most safety episodes that occurred in the country had their origin in the meat packing houses, probably because of failure to follow strictly the recommended slaughtering and handling practices by the industry. While nutrient composition may not have anything to do with product safety per se, it still serves the purpose of persuading the consumers to ponder over the implications of consuming meat products because of the presence in them of cholesterol and saturated fat besides total lack of fiber. It is gratifying to see that the above anomaly is sought to be rectified by the authorities concerned through mandatory notification. Here is a take on this development.   

"US consumers will now have convenient access to important nutritional information about the raw meat and poultry products they most frequently purchase, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced. Under a new FSIS rule, packages of ground or chopped meat and poultry, such as hamburger or ground turkey, will now feature nutrition facts panels on their labels. Additionally, 40 of the most popular whole, raw cuts of meat and poultry, such as chicken breast or steak, will also have nutritional information either on the package labels or on display to consumers at the store. "Providing nutrition information on meat and poultry products in the store gives shoppers a clearer sense of the options available, allowing them to purchase items that are most appropriate for their families' needs," said Under Secretary for Food Safety Dr. Elisabeth Hagen. "These new labels mark a significant step in the agency's efforts to help consumers make more informed food purchase decisions."  The new nutrition facts panels will list the number of calories and the grams of total fat and saturated fat that a product contains. For example, consumers will be able to compare the calories and fat content for ground turkey versus ground beef, or for pork chops versus chicken breasts, right in the store. Additionally, a ground or chopped product that includes on its label a lean percentage statement, such as "85% lean," and is not considered "low in fat" also will list its fat percentage, making it easier for consumers to understand the amounts of lean and fat content in a particular product. Consumers will no longer have to guess which products fit their diets". 

The anomaly in the food safety monitoring system in the US can be attributed to the fact that two distinct agencies are involved dealing with safety aspects, USDA and FDA and synchronization of the rules between them is happening too slowly allowing the meat and poultry industry to take liberty with the quality and safety of products they make. Besides inadequate inspection of processing facilities due to shortage of qualified personnel is great handicap faced by the enforcement agency concerned. Politicking with food safety between the two major parties is adding further uncertainty to the situation. While one party is totally aligned with and committed to the interests of food industry over riding consumer concerns, the other is not bold enough to think or plan any thing to resist the lobbyists who exercise enormous influence on the political class in general. The new mandatory labeling regulations for meat products therefore can be considered a huge success to the harried citizens of this country. 

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com