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

Food taxes not the cure for obesity

Wednesday, 08 September 2010 17:17

Imposing a regressive tax on high fat, sugar and salt (HFFS) foods won’t change overweight and obesity levels in Australia, the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) said today (8 September).

Responding to the Assessing Cost-Effectiveness in Prevention (ACE Prevention) report, AFGC highlighted that there was already a 10 per cent tax on processed foods – the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which came into effect in 2000.

AFGC Chief Executive Kate Carnell said the report’s recommendation for a 10 per tax on “unhealthy foods” made no sense in addressing obesity and wider health problems in the community.

“Taxes on food are simply taxes. While there is no tax on fresh food, Australia has had a GST on processed foods for the past decade yet obesity levels have continued to climb,” Ms Carnell said.

“Having a tax on food is clearly not the answer to effectively tackle Australia’s obesity problem – food taxes are regressive as they penalise people who can least afford it.”

Ms Carnell said Australia will only reverse the obesity trend with a comprehensive preventative health approach involving governments, industry, the community and individuals taking more responsibility for their personal health and of their families.

The ACE Prevention report also called for mandatory limits on salt in bread, margarine and cereals. However Ms Carnell highlighted that industry was already voluntarily reducing salt in foods in partnership with Government through the Food and Health Dialogue.

Under the Dialogue, Australia’s food industry has agreed to salt reduction targets for breads and cereals. Australian researchers recently found that more than 70 per cent of Australia’s ready-to-eat cereals were already below the salt target in this category*. (*Source: Webster et al., American Journal of Clinical Nutrition January 2010; 91:413-20)

Food companies are also proactively working with Government to target other food product areas where salt can be reduced including in processed meats, soups, sauces and snack foods.

- ENDS -

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

Download a PDF of this media release here:

ACE report media release - 8 sept 2010

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