Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code

The Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code (ANZFSC) is the legal code governing food safety and food labelling in Australia and New Zealand. ^{[1] [2]} It is administered by Food Standards Australia New Zealand. ^[3] Officially, it is issued as Australian secondary legislation and then adopted by New Zealand secondary legislation. ^[4] It contains certain chapters labelled as "Australia only" which do not apply in New Zealand, and the New Zealand government has the discretion to refuse to adopt amendments which it disagrees with–an example is New Zealand's decision not to adopt the new Kava standard which significantly reduced the legal availability of Kava, on the grounds that doing so interfered with the cultural rights of Pasifika peoples. ^[5] Within Australia, enforcement of the Code for domestically produced products is primarily the responsibility of the state and territory governments, with the federal government's enforcement role focused on food imports. ^[6]

History

In 1995, Australia and New Zealand signed the Joint Food Standards Treaty, which provided the legal basis for the Code. In New Zealand, the Code was adopted in February 2001 and entered fully into force in December 2002. ^[7]

Contents

The Code is divided into four chapters: ^[8]

• Chapter 1 contains standards that apply to all foods, including labelling requirements, additives, contaminants, genetically modified foods. All the standards in this chapter apply to both Australia and New Zealand, except for Standards 1.4.2 (Agvet chemicals) and 1.6.2 (Processing requirements for meat), which apply to Australia only.
• Chapter 2 contains chapters for specific types of foods, which each chapter only governing foods of that type. All the standards in this chapter apply to both countries, except for Standard 2.8.3 (Native bee honey) which applies in Australia only, and Standard 2.9.6 (Transitional standard for special purpose foods (including amino acid modified foods)), which applies in New Zealand only.
• Chapter 3 contains food safety standards which apply to Australia only, focused on retail premises and equipment used for food preparation, and commercial kitchens (restaurants, cafes, canteens, hospitals and prisons, etc.)
• Chapter 4 contains food safety standards which apply to Australia only, focused on safe primary production and manufacturing of foodstuffs

Criticisms

The Code's cheese-making standards have been criticised as a "a wholly dysfunctional combination of prescriptive and performance-based regulation". ^[9]

References

1. Rees, Naomi; Watson, David (30 April 2000). International Standards for Food Safety. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN   978-0-8342-1768-3.
2. Australia's food & nutrition 2012. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. 2012. p. 45. ISBN   978-1-74249-323-7.
3. "Food Standards Code | Food Standards Australia New Zealand". Food Standards Australia New Zealand . Retrieved 26 December 2024.
4. Industries, Ministry for Primary (20 September 2024). "Food standards | NZ Government". Food standards | NZ Government. Retrieved 26 December 2024.
5. Tokalau, Torika (1 May 2023). "Cultural importance behind decision not to restrict kava use in NZ, as Australia tightens rules urgently". Stuff . Retrieved 26 December 2024.
6. Wahlqvist, Mark L. (27 July 2020). Food and Nutrition: Sustainable food and health systems. Taylor & Francis. p. 119. ISBN   978-1-000-24951-4.
7. Crothers, Lindy (23 June 2021). "New Zealand: FAIRS Annual Country Report" (PDF). United States Department of Agriculture: Foreign Agricultural Service. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
8. "Food Standards Code legislation". Food Standards Australia New Zealand . Retrieved 26 December 2024.
9. Deighton-Smith, Rex; Carroll, Peter; Silver, Helen; Walker, Chris (2008). "Process and performance-based regulation: challenges for regulatory governance and regulatory reform". Minding the Gap: Appraising the promise and performance of regulatory reform in Australia. ANU Press. pp. 89–104. ISBN   978-1-921313-15-8. JSTOR   j.ctt24hdst.13 . Retrieved 2 January 2025.

External links

• Text of the code