- Target:
- Members of the Australia New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council
- Region:
- Australia
- Website:
- www.hsi.org.au
Consumer awareness of the ethical, environmental and health considerations associated with factory farming production methods continues to grow, with consumers increasingly wanting to make more informed decisions on the animal-derived food products that they purchase.
Making such informed choices however is limited by the suite of confusing, poorly defined and unregulated labelling terms currently in use, including caged, cage-free, barn laid, free-range and bred free-range. This range of terms is not only confusing for consumers, but the absence of standardised definitions leaves them open to interpretation and misuse by producers. Consequently, terms such as free-range are used to refer to vastly different husbandry practices.
The Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council is due to start a comprehensive review of food labelling law and policy in 2009. Your help is needed to ensure that animal welfare-related labelling is subject to tighter controls to protect both consumers and genuine producers.
Truth in labelling of animal welfare-related production methods will, among other things:
§ Assist consumers to make suitably informed choices
§ Protect genuine free range and organic producers
§ Prevent the use of misleading and deceptive labelling and marketing practices
§ Allow the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to prosecute misleading and deceptive conduct relating to food labelling in this area.
To demonstrate the need for consistent national standards and definitions on animal products, HSI has developed a national online consumer survey, which can be viewed at: http://bit.ly/BwboA
Please take the time to answer this quick survey. We will be submitting the results along with the signatures to this petition to the Ministerial Council as part of the review process as a means of bringing about tighter controls on animal-welfare related labelling. We will be calling on the Ministerial Council to direct Food Standards Australia New Zealand to develop a nationally consistent labelling scheme that permits the use of only a limited number of legally defined terms on animal products.
Further information about this issue is available at http://www.hsi.org.au/
Thank you for your help
To Members of the Australia New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council
We the undersigned, call on the Members of the Australia New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council, as part of the comprehensive review into food labelling law and policy, to direct Food Standards Australia New Zealand to develop a nationally consistent labelling scheme for all animal-derived food products.
Such a scheme should permit the use of only a limited number of legally defined terms on animal products, so as to protect consumers and genuine producers from misleading and deceptive labelling and marketing practices.
We thank you for your attention to this important matter.
You can further help this campaign by sponsoring it
The Help bring about truth in labelling petition to Members of the Australia New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council was written by HSIAustralia and is in the category Animal Welfare at GoPetition.