Australia’s new country of origin food labelling laws have been launched with the promise of more “clarity and consistency for Australian consumers”.
This is the claim of Australian Made Campaign chief executive Ian Harrison, who said a tighter system for food labelling would give shoppers more confidence and help Australian farmers and manufacturers.
“It removes that old phrase which nobody liked: ‘Made in Australia from local and imported ingredients’,” Harrison said.
The Australian Made Campaign’s (AMCL) Australian Made, Australian Grown (AMAG) kangaroo logo will feature on most new labels, along with a bar chart showing what proportion of the ingredients come from Australia.
The new system is compulsory for all food products produced for sale in Australia.
Consumers will gradually start to see the new labels roll out, with a two year phase-in period to allow companies to redesign, reprint and apply the new labels before the 30 June 2018 deadline, when the new system will become mandatory.
Companies will still be allowed to sell products with the existing labels after 1 July, 2018 providing the labels were applied before the cut-off date.
“The widespread use of the logo will also strengthen its connection to Australia and help boost sales of genuine Aussie goods in domestic and export markets.
“Exported food is not required to carry the new labels so businesses wanting to use the AMAG logo on their products can do so under a licence with AMCL.”
Shoppers will continue to see the AMAG logo on all other types of Aussie products, with AMCL to continue administering and promoting the logo as a voluntary country of origin certification trade mark.
