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UWA Business School
Nearly all packaged food contains a raft of nutrition information, from ingredients lists and allergy advice, through to levels of energy, fat, salt, carbohydrates, and sugar. Despite this, says Professor Simone Pettigrew, from The University of Western Australia Business School, many people are still confused about what they are really eating.

Professor Pettigrew has just completed a review of food labelling laws in Australia and New Zealand as part of a panel reporting to the federal government. The panel's report, Labelling Logic, made 61 recommendations to improve food labelling laws and policy, and is the result of a year of public consultations and hearings.

‘We received over 7,000 submissions, with consumers' concerns covering areas such as genetic modification, trans fat, food allergies, visibility and readability of labels, use of specific terminology, and country of origin,' said Professor Pettigrew.

‘It became clear that there is much confusion surrounding the current food labelling laws in Australia. In our recommendations we attempted to balance the demands of government, industry, and consumers to create a set of recommendations that will best encourage healthy food choices.'

The report recommends that food safety advice such as allergy information be made mandatory, preventative health information (including nutrition information) be regulated through a combination of mandatory and voluntary guidelines, new technology disclosures (such as genetic modification) be subject to mandatory regulations for thirty years and then reviewed, and that information related to values (such as organic or free range labels) be primarily industry-regulated, with oversight from government.

The panel also recommended that fast food chain stores be required to display the energy content of food products on menu boards, and have other nutrition information available on request. Other recommendations included compelling manufacturers of mixed drinks containing alcohol to provide nutrition information panels, and removing the nutrition information for individual serving sizes on food packaging.

‘At the moment it's possible for companies to make food products appear healthier than they actually are,' said Professor Pettigrew. ‘For example, companies have a tendency to recommend small serving sizes; a 535g tin of ravioli, according to one manufacturer, is supposed to contain a meal for two people. Yet my son, who is 10 years old, will eat an entire tin when he gets home from school and then have dinner two hours later.

‘Unless you have the time and knowledge to read labels carefully, nutrition information can be confusing or even misleading.'

Professor Pettigrew's work with the independent panel examining food labelling ties into a current Healthway-funded study that Pettigrew, along with other Western Australian researchers, is conducting into low socio-economic status (SES) families with overweight children.

Price, taste, and reliance on well-known brands dominate the shopping decisions of low SES families. While some low SES shoppers also used information relating to the energy content or presence of food additives to choose products, most didn't read food labels at all - it was simply too hard. This supports previous research that has found that most grocery shoppers spend between four and ten seconds choosing each food product and tend to prioritise taste and price over nutrition information.

‘You've got to be a scientist to work out what numbers are for what,' said one parent, referring to the numbers that denote different food additives and colourings. Many low SES parents also spoke about feeling self-conscious while reading labels in supermarkets, although numerous parents expressed a desire to learn more about food labelling and nutrition information.

‘There is a definite role for interpretive labelling and community education,' said Professor Pettigrew. ‘Interpretative labelling, such as the traffic light labelling system, allows consumers to make faster, easier choices and can be helpful for consumers trying to avoid a particular ingredient, such as salt or sugar.

‘Next steps include conducting more research to clarify labelling laws around alcohol, the interchangeability of the terms ‘salt' and ‘sodium', and front-of-pack labelling.'

The panel conducting the Independent Review of Food Labelling Law and Policy was chaired by Dr Neal Blewett, and also included Dr Chris Reynolds, Associate Professor Heather Yeatman, and Nick Goddard.

The federal government is expected to respond to the report by December 2011.

Media references

Heather Merritt
Director, External Relations
UWA Business School
T: +618 6488 8171
M: 0419 950 027
E: [email protected]

Verity Chia
Communications Officer
UWA Business School
T: +618 6488 1346
E: [email protected]