The food and grocery manufacturing sector pays wages and salaries of $13.56 billion.
The industry’s workforce accounts for about 3 per cent of the population.
The food and grocery manufacturing industry consists of 30,104 businesses.
The industry provides around 24 million nutritious, affordable meals to Australians every day.
312,000 Australians are employed in the food, beverage and manufacturing industries, including half in rural and regional areas.
Australia’s $108 billion food and grocery manufacturing industry is the nation’s largest manufacturing sector.
Industry spends on average 0.5 per cent of turn-over on R&D – about $368 million a year.

Media Centre

EU switches off ‘traffic light’ food labels

Thursday, 17 June 2010 18:19

A landmark decision by the European Parliament to adopt front-of-pack food labelling – very similar to the system used by Australia’s food industry – has been applauded by the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) today. (June 17)

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) also rejected “traffic light” food labels on June 16, which AFGC said was a step in the right direction to help consumers make informed nutritional choices.

AFGC Chief Executive Kate Carnell said the EU’s decision was an important outcome, especially in light of the current Review of Food Labelling Policy and Law in Australia.

“We hope that the Blewett Review will take note of the EU’s ruling on front-of-pack labelling, which empowers consumers to make more informed food choices and improve their diets,” Ms Carnell said.

Under the EU decision, companies will now use Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA) to label the energy, sugar, salt and fat content on the front of food packages, as well as protein, unsaturated fats and fibre.

Ms Carnell said this is a “very similar” model to Australia’s Daily Intake Guide (DIG) front-of-pack labelling system which lists the amount of energy, fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt in a recommended serve of the food and what this represents as a proportion of average daily intake.

The DIG system, launched in Australia in 2006, is now used by the majority of leading brands on more than 2500 food and beverage products in supermarkets and convenience stores. This is a 3000 per cent increase from 2007 when DIG was used by major brands on only 58 products.

DIG is also being progressively added to private labels in major supermarkets including Woolworths, Coles and IGA.

For more information on the Daily Intake Guide, visit www.mydailyintake.net

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More information: Brad Watts AFGC Media Adviser (02) 6270 9021 or 0437 379 818