FoodLegal

A summary of developments in food law in Australia and internationally for the month of September 2025

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has initiated numerous enforcement actions against businesses throughout 2025 regarding online representations and claims. This article examines key risk areas to consider when selling online, and outlines tips for businesses when developing and rolling out their online marketing.

While Australia and New Zealand share a bi-national regulatory framework for foods ‘on paper’, there are several important carve-outs and deviations where New Zealand has elected to implement its own specific standards. Now, with the introduction of separate standards for infant formula products in Australia and New Zealand, we again ask: Do we still have a bi-national food framework? In this article, we examine the history of joint food regulation between Australia and New Zealand, and some of the important current carve-outs from the bi-national approach, and what this means for businesses selling our sourcing foods in Australia and New Zealand.

The Australian Office of Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) and Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) both have involvement in regulating gene technology but do so completely separately in different parts of the food supply chain for food sold in the Australian market. The OGTR determines if a genetically modified organism (GMO) is safe to be released into the environment and regulates activities such as growing GM crops. FSANZ, on the other hand, engages in an extensive approval process and food safety assessment whenever a new GMO is proposed for use in food for human consumption. This article compares the separate processes of the two regulatory bodies and the implications these have on food business compliance obligations, as well as the impact in the strangest ways, such as an impact on eligibility to make a country of origin claim, as illustrated in this article.