A new five star rating system to be displayed on the front of food packaging has been approved by state and federal health and agriculture ministers today.
The labelling system, which will initially be voluntary, rates foods from half-a-star to five stars, based on nutritional value.
The Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC), however, warned the Federal Government that serious flaws remain and need to be resolved if an effective front-of-pack nutrition labelling system (FoPL) is to be implemented.
AFGC CEO Gary Dawson said that it was unfortunate that the announcement had been rushed out by the Federal Government without any cost benefit analysis or evidence that it will achieve the outcomes it is seeking.
The star ratings give an overall indication of a food’s nutritional quality. Additional information will also be given on key nutrients associated with diet-related disease: sugars, saturated fat, sodium and kilojoules.
Soft drinks and confectionery will be exempt, but they will still display the kilojoule content.
Federal health minister, Tanya Plibersek, said the new system was a win for consumers.
“Front-of-Pack Labelling will support consumers to make healthier food choices by giving them at-a-glance information about the food they buy,” she said.
“The star rating system will contribute to alleviating the burden of chronic disease, overweight and obesity issues in Australia.
“Today more than four million Australians are obese, and almost 10 million are overweight. One in four children are overweight or obese, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are almost two times as likely as non-indigenous Australians to be obese."
The new rating system has been developed over two years by a working group on food packaging, which contains representatives of the food industry and consumer and public health groups, including Choice, The Heart Foundation and the AMA.
Choice said the system would enable consumers to make healthier choices at-a-glance. According to Choice, a five-star rating instantly says a product is a great choice, while one star says it is a ‘sometimes’ food.
“The Health Star Rating has been designed to replace the industry’s flawed Daily Intake Guide and the onus will now be on food companies to implement the system widely so that consumers can quickly compare products and make better choices about what they eat,” said Choice chair Jenni Mack, who led the group that developed the implementation framework
According to Choice, the onus would be on the industry to “embrace the Health Star Rating or face a mandatory approach”.
Choice said it would work with industry representatives on the rollout of the scheme. Dawson, however, said though the AFGC and the food processing sector was willing to remain engaged in the development of the scheme, a number of outstanding issues will need to be resolved in order to effectively implement an easily understood labelling system to promote healthy, balanced diets.
“Industry believes that there are still significant problems with the proposal but we are committed to working through them to see if a workable solution can be found,” he said.
“The food industry is expected to carry the $200m cost of implementing this scheme while also dealing with an additional regulatory burden. If industry is going to make this investment in a new FoPL system, it must be based on sound and credible science, effective in communicating with consumers and practical and attractive for industry to implement."
Dawson said an effective system will need to resolve issues such as how the star system is calculated to avoid anomalous ratings and would also need to address whether there would be substantial funds to educate consumers on how to use the labelling for healthy diet selection.
“Any move to mandate these changes would be a major setback and is certainly inconsistent with the National Food Plan and the Asian Century White Paper that aims to reduce the regulatory burden and enhance export competitiveness of Australia's food processing industry,” said Dawson.
