FoodLegal Bulletin November 2011 Foreword

Date Published

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I recently returned from the Global Food Lawyers Annual Conference in Zurich where I spoke on "Different Legal Meanings of Food Safety - an Australian perspective".  (A photograph with some of the other participants can be viewed here).  

Thank you to the many readers who attended FoodLegal's special Symposium: 'Healthy Bodies of Laws: Food or Therapeutic Routes?' on 10 October in Sydney. The audience feedback was very positive with participants finding the sessions interesting and informative, as we did.

Readers are now invited to register their interest in FoodLegal's forthcoming Intensive Workshop on "Going Green: Eco-claims for Fast Moving Consumer Goods". This half-day workshop to be initially run in Sydney (on the morning of Monday 13 February) and repeated in Melbourne (on the morning of Monday 20 February) will focus on the different types of environmental claims and the regulatory criteria to be met for eligibility to make any such claim. The workshop will cover the impacts of recent Product Stewardship legislation, Carbon Price legislation implementation, Carbon Credits claims, ACCC guidelines, court case principles and other regulatory issues for marketers and product developers relevant to the environmental credentials and criteria governing their products or services.

This issue of FoodLegal Bulletin begins with a FREE article on Current developments in food law and policy.

Our second FREE article ACCC Mandatory Reporting Requirements Update is relevant to all participants in the supply chain of consumer goods, including food and beverage products who must comply with these requirements.

Our third article Update on Health and Nutrition claims standard 1.2.7 provides the latest update on progress towards a new standard for health, nutrition and related claims.

Our fourth article for subscribers Are food additives "food"? How legal definitions impact the regulation of food additive manufacture considers the current convoluted legal routes defining "food additive", "food" and "ingredient" and examines the issue of how or whether some of the prohibitions in the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code applicable to food apply to the manufacture of food additives.  

FoodLegal Food Chemist Tony Zipper and Joe Lederman provide critical analysis in evaluating FSANZ's newly revised Nutrition Panel Calculator in their 2,700 word article entitled Product review: FSANZ Nutrition Panel Calculator.  

Our final article, The Misunderstood Child of the Food Standards - the Processing Aid explores the laws concerning the usage of Processing Aids and the obligations as to labelling of Processing Aids. The article (of 2,550 words) attempts to debunk (in serious detail) many of the myths and misunderstandings surrounding Processing Aids.

Happy reading!

Joe Lederman

(Editor and Publisher)