FoodLegal

A summary of food regulatory developments in Australia and internationally, for the month of September 2024.

Sustainability initiatives allow businesses to market to eco-conscious consumers, whilst complying with their legal obligations and responding to commercial needs. Businesses may want to collaborate with each other to undertake certain sustainability initiatives, but these collaborations present regulatory risk and scrutiny from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which has published guidance on this topic. This article explores the various conduct that is enforced by the ACCC, how businesses can avoid engaging in prohibited conduct and where it is possible to seek ACCC authorisation if there is a risk of contravention.

To market the nutritional qualities of their products, or even to correctly display mandatory nutrition information, food businesses need reliable nutritional data for their products. One way of sourcing this data is through the use of nutrition databases. This article addresses the choices and potential variability and differences between Australian and international databases when being used to validate nutritional values for a food product. There are numerous factors that could significantly impact the ability of food businesses to make accurate nutrition content claims based on variations between nutritional values in different databases.

The Health Star Ratings display system (HSR) was introduced in Australia in 2014 as a health-labelling initiative imposed by government initially as a voluntary scheme for the food industry. However, a slower-than-expected uptake has renewed calls by health advocacy groups for the Australian government to make the HSR system mandatory. This article explores the problems with making the HSR system mandatory.