Be consistent in control

If anybody was in doubt about the shambles, double standards, inconsistencies and deception surrounding the protection of food consumers in Australia, the Nanna’s Berries episode demonstrates that we still have not got things right.

That only five per cent of imported fruit and berries was being tested for contaminants is an indictment of Australia’s biosecurity regime. Were we trusting the Chinese authorities to do our job for us?

Now federal ministers Barnaby Joyce and Fiona Nash tell us that 100 per cent screening will apply to “frozen berries from factories in China linked to the Australian Hepatitis A incident, which have been held pending further testing”.

Does that mean that they will test only the product they are holding or will they test everything that comes into Australia from those factories in the future? I trust it is the latter.

The Australian Farm Institute (AFI) correctly observes that this whole episode raises questions about our food labelling laws, our quarantine and biosecurity standards, and, ultimately, the longer-term implications for Australia’s food processing and food retail sectors. It sharpens our focus on the major supermarket chains to ensure they are doing the right thing by consumers, their customers.

“…both major supermarket retailers have substantially increased their imports of overseas fruit and vegetables over recent years as part of their development of home brand lines of processed and frozen products,” the AFI’s Mick Keogh says.

“By some estimates, over one-third of all products on the major retailers shelves will be home brands by 2018, and processed fruit and vegetables have been at the forefront in this regard.”

The two major chains have played hardball as far as some Australian produce is concerned:

Coles banned the use of hormonal growth promotants in cattle and sow-stalls for pig producers

Woolworths banned sow-stalls and proposes to ban caged-egg production by December 2018.

Without going into the merits of each ban, they come at a cost to Australian consumers and, according to the AFI, will increase disease and biosecurity risks.

Why then do the same supermarkets continue to import frozen and processed fruit and vegetables from countries where there are known biosecurity and health risks in their food production and processing?

The TFGA view is not that all imported food should be banned. That is both heavy-handed and unrealistic. We just want consistency in the policing of quality.

That goes for China as well. This week the Tasmanian-based technology developer Sense-T claimed that “for every kilogram of real Tasmanian cherries on the shelf in China, there are an additional 5 kg labelled as Tasmanian but which come from somewhere else”.

That is incredible.

What is the solution to all this? Clearly, consumers in Australia and China need certainty in labelling, in being able to identify the source of the food they are being invited to buy. Currently, the terminology being used in packing is ambiguous and misleading at best, deceptive at worst.

Sense-T offers a technological solution with electronic sensors attached to the product so that the intending buyer can scan the packaging to check its provenance. But are we really all going to do that?

And who says the product inside the packaging has not been repackaged somewhere else?

This is a dog’s breakfast and it is time that truth in labelling and a scrupulous biosecurity regime were put in place.

Ultimately, of course, the best option for all of us is to grow local, buy local and eat local. Tasmanian farmers are the best at their trade in the world, bar none. We have the finest produce, we farm to the highest standards, we abide by all the laws of the land, we have pride in our product and we are reliable.
TFGA