FoodLegal Bulletin May 2011 Foreword

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Welcome to our May 2011 issue of FoodLegal Bulletin. 

We begin this issue with a FREE article on the most recent meeting of the Australia New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council on 6 May 2011. The issues covered were caffeinated food and beverages, a new policy regarding infant foods, regulatory action in relation to folic acid fortification of flour, foreshadowed policies on a national publicity approach for food outlets safety, and food labelling reform recommendations.   

Our second FREE article this month outlines other Additional recent developments in food law and policy with additional updates of food industry regulatory affairs news. 

Our article “The Blewett Review: Legislation, Compliance and Enforcement” features the detailed full presentation by Dr Christopher Reynolds, a member of the Blewett Review Panel, at FoodLegal’s “Blewett Between the Lines” symposium held in Sydney at the end of March 2011. 

Recent research studies have shown that health-oriented monikers have significant influence on consumer psychology. Our article “The regulatory implications of research findings about health-oriented monikers or pseudonyms” examines academic research about consumer perceptions and its food regulatory policy implications. 

In our article “How mandatory should Country of Origin Labelling be?”, we contrast Australia’s mandatory system for country of origin labelling with New Zealand’s voluntary system and evaluate the relative strengths and weaknesses of each scheme. 

Our article “EU concerns over meat binding agents” examines the regulatory scheme for binding agents in Australia in the context of recent EU arguments.

Our article “Legibility, font sizes and the recommendations of the Blewett Review” addresses some of the Blewett labelling reform recommendations.

Happy reading!