Wandering in the Ausfood wilderness

I've now spent nearly eight weeks reading labels and putting together the foundation of my Ausfood cupboard.

While on the one hand I am greatly encouraged about the availability and labelling of some Australian food products I am now becoming aware of certain confusing aspects of food labelling that needs to be approached with some caution.

A particular item, let’s say for the argument, might be tomato paste or might be canola oil, will have the same brand name but will be labelled product of Australia on one size container and labelled as an imported product in another. Or it might be a combination of imported and local products. This makes life difficult and means that every time you buy this item you need to read the label if you want to be sure you are buying Australian.

What really irks me is tomato paste; I have found that multiples of two or four packs may have no identifying country of origin at all. Multiple packs of tomato paste require a great deal of application when reading the labels, even for some-one dedicated to the cause!!. I fail to understand all the discrepancies but I am sure the food manufacture has a perfectly good reason for stuffing around with the labelling process regarding country of origin.

There – I've got all that off my chest. Now I can move on to another grouch because Grouchland is where I am headed today.

At this stage I am becoming more aware of the number of ingredients that might be found in something as simple as flour, especially when you move away from plain flour. These are usually additives which keep the flour fresh and easy to use, no sifting and in the case of SR flour the raising agents are numbers. As for buying plain flour and adding the raising agents yourself – forget it – I am yet to find on any supermarket shelves any raising agents manufactured in Australia. Only bi-carb soda is a product of Australia; cream of tartar and baking soda come from some other place.

Meat is labelled in the duopoly supermarkets because it is packaged but even this rule of thumb cannot be applied to all other supermarkets where labelling is haphazard and in the case of the butchers shop with meat cut and displayed in cases no mention is made of country of origin at all.

Any questions about this bring the curt response of all our meat is Australian. I am mystified why supermarkets seem to have one labelling system for meat but this doesn't seem to apply to your standard butcher shop. Huh?

As I could go on at length on this topic I will close off by putting fruit and veggie vendors under the label magnifying glass. Once again the duopoly labels their products but not all the other supermarkets follow this practice. The more consumer oriented green grocers will identify their products but the only products easily identified in the smaller shops will be the packaged products.

Country of origin product labelling? What a confusing tangle for the ordinary shopper.

More reading about labelling laws and label reading

Because this is an area which is fraught with difficulty I am including this link which will take you to the ACCC page where you can read the ACCC definitions straight off your computer screen - or whatever happens to be your choice of screen.

It ties in with this previous post here and explains what the consumer's expectations should be when they read these words on a food product label.

When I am reading labels for country of origin, I look for "Grown In" and "Product Of" first of all; with fresh produce this should be a straight forward exercise. 

However, I am wary when reading labels where the words "Made In" appear and I check the ingredients to see whether they are likely to be grown in Australia or not.

 All products labelled with the words "Made In " are treated with great caution.

Labelling Laws

I wait in the motel reception this afternoon while the owner takes what turns out to be a long winded telephone call. I’m waiting to finalise my account as I will be leaving very early in the morning; I pick up a motel brochure and commence reading. This brochure is in the room but on reading it again I see I have missed something important. Something of great interest to me. I can hire a tablet for a nominal sum; I get it immediately, along with a few instructions and I find it more user friendly than similiar devices I have used in the past.

After playing around on the tablet for a while I settle down to do some serious research. I decide to look for some labelling information. I look at two sites: www.foodstandards.gov.au and another belonging to the ACCC  and consider them both useful sites for defining words on labels.

However, nothing is ever as simple as you might like it to be. The ACCC is a transition website and this publication here concerning country of origin and Australian Consumer Law is being reviewed. Enough said – especially when I see the publication was last published in 2011. I do look at the current electronic version and make a note of information around the words Made in Australia which might be useful in the future.

The Fsanz site offers a little more about unpackaged foods and country of origin labelling. I read and I am bewildered; each sentence is more bewildering than the last. I move on to the paragraph about exemptions from country of origin labelling and find this:

Are there any exemptions from country of origin labelling?

There are some exemptions for country of origin labelling. For example it is not required when food is sold to the public for immediate consumption, for example food sold in cafes, restaurants and canteens, or where a food is made and packaged on the premises it is sold, such as a bakery where the bread is baked and sold on site.

Now there’s something to think about.

 Bread. Eating out in cafes and restaurants.

 If I am going to take on the challenge of eating Australian only food it will certainly need to be modified to a part time challenge.

It’s after midnight now and I am too tired to read any more. I need a few hours sleep before I leave town on the 6.30 a.m. bus -  when the sun will hardly be above the horizon.