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Click on the links to veiw our policy statements on: The Food and Grocery Industry
Regulation
Nutrition and Health
Front of Pack Labelling
Advertising and Marketing
New Technnologies
Sustainability
Emissions Trading Schemes
Palm Oil
Container Deposit Schemes (CDS)
Food and Grocery Product Safety
Crisis Management
The Food and Grocery Industry The long-term success of the food and grocery sector is essential to meeting the everyday needs of the nation’s growing population and is core to the wellbeing of all 22 million Australians, now and many more consumers overseas – their health and quality of life depend on both its existence and excellence.
The $100 billion food and grocery industry is currently growing and has the potential for significant growth into the future. However, this future vision for the food and grocery industry will not be achieved without an over-arching, coordinated government strategy, developed in partnership with industry and other stakeholders.
AFGC has called for a National Food and Grocery Agenda to secure the industry’s long-term sustainable growth, increase export earnings and competitiveness and to guarantee safe, affordable, healthy food for all Australians. A thriving and prosperous food industry will contribute to the Australian economy providing employment opportunities, especially in rural and regional areas.
Australia needs a comprehensive, coordinated national food and grocery policy to protect the nation’s long-term food security and to ensure manufacturers can meet consumer expectations of quality, price, value, convenience and safety. Return to list
Regulation AFGC supports the concept of a best practice regulatory framework that demands the highest food and grocery standards necessary to meet the needs of consumers, whilst allowing industry to innovate and flourish sustainably.
AFGC policy endorses the Competition Policy Principles of adopted by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) and considers an effective and efficient regulatory framework comprises:
- decision-making framework whereby regulatory measures are adopted based on agreed scientific evidence
- comprehensive suite of policy to guide the development of regulation ensuring the full needs of the community are met
- a range of regulatory options encompassing the full spectrum of regulatory measures from black letter law through to voluntary industry codes
- full industry compliance assured through effective national enforcement and monitoring.
Return to list Nutrition and Health AFGC advocates a positive role for the food, beverage and grocery industry in helping Australians make better diet and lifestyle choices, leading to health and wellness. Nutrition and health policy should be based on evidence, sound nutrition principles and a whole-of-diet approach recognising that all foods can play a role in healthy, balance diets.
The food manufacturing industry plays a central role in supporting heath and nutrition of Australians and has committed to a number of initiatives to support consumers to maintain a balanced diet. These include:
- Informing the consumer through clear nutrition labelling for consumers on front of pack using the Daily Intake Guide Labelling scheme.
- Providing better choices through offering a range of portion sizes and low-energy, low-fat, low-sugar and low-salt variants to help people balance their dietary needs.
- Seeking more uniform and standardised serve sizes to help consumers to compare products and manage their diet.
- Continual review and reformulation of products to reduce risk associated nutrients (salt, fat, saturated fat, sugar) and increase the levels of beneficial nutrients (vitamins and minerals).
- Responsible advertising and promotion of products in line with the Responsible Children’s Marketing Initiative which requires signatories to commit to not advertising unhealthy products to children.
Return to list Front of Pack Labelling AFGC considers that it is of paramount importance to provide clear nutrition information to help consumers understand what’s in the food they eat and how it contributes to their diet.
AFGC developed the Daily Intake Guide as a front of pack labelling system to show what’s in a serve and how it relates the average adult’s daily intake of 8700kJ.
Daily Intake labels show 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.
This helps consumers make easy, smart choices about the food they need to include in their diet and ultimately helps consumers see the relationship between a serve of food and their daily requirements.
AFGC considers the Daily Intake Guide to be an important tool in helping boost the food literacy of consumers.
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Advertising and Marketing AFGC advocates the responsible advertising and marketing of food, beverage and grocery products and supports the following Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) codes:
- AANA Code of Ethics
- AANA Food & Beverages: Advertising & Marketing Communication Code
- Environmental Claims in Advertising and Marketing Code.
- AANA Code for Marketing & Advertising Communications to Children.
Advertising should be ethical and prepared with a strong sense of obligation to consumers and fairness to competitors. Manufacturers must be socially responsible in advertising and marketing of food and beverage products and services in Australia.
Advertisers and marketers should develop and maintain rigorous standards when making environmental claims. Providing clear, straightforward, environmental information has benefits for consumers and business alike. It can help consumers make an informed choice as well as raise awareness of issues, enhance consumer understanding and improve product standards overall.
All advertising to children should be conducted within prevailing community standards. AFGC considers that manufacturers must respect community concern particularly in relation to the advertising of food and beverages. Manufacturers are strongly encouraged to sign on the Responsible Children’s Marketing Initiative and make a public commitment not to advertise unhealthy products to children.
Return to top New Technnologies Australian food producers are continually seeking to provide consumers with a wider range of better food and grocery choices through innovation. As such, Australians can now choose food that contains ingredients produced from new ingredients or processes such as gene technologies and irradiation.
AFGC supports the introduction of new technologies into food and grocery production and manufacture where there are clear benefits to consumers, industry or the environment and appropriate regulatory assessment and approval has been undertaken based on accepted risk assessment. AFGC member companies, however, are the final arbiters of which technologies will be used in their own businesses, based on their understanding of the needs of their own consumers.
Where new technologies are used, AFGC supports labelling based on the regulatory requirements and companies’ determinations on how to give consumers the information they need to make their own decisions about whether to purchase foods produced using new technologies.
Return to list Sustainability Pursuing sustainability makes good business sense. Addressing the key challenges to industry sustainability - water, waste, energy and social issues – is absolutely essential to the long term viability of the food and grocery manufacturing sector in Australia. AFGC considers that a coordinated, cooperative effort involving all aspects of the supply chain is needed to effectively address these challenges. Embracing sustainability provides an opportunity to unlock immediate and long-term value via tangible cost savings and resource efficiencies, risk mitigation, reputation and market positioning, and staff engagement and retention.
AFGC is committed to working with industry to develop sustainable and socially responsible systems for the production and consumption of products. Manufacturers are working to ensure that what they provide is safe and healthy for consumers, investing in our local communities, engaging effectively and responsibly with our customers and creating wealth and employment in the Australian economy. AFCG has developed guiding principles for the industry to help improve the sustainability of food manufacturing in Australia.
Return to list Emissions Trading Schemes AFGC considers that it is essential that the Australian food and grocery manufacturing industry becomes more energy efficient and reduces emissions.
AFGC supports the Prime Minister’s stated position that Australia should ‘do no more and no less than other advanced economies. As the industry is trade-exposed, it is important that it is not unfairly disadvantaged by the imposition of additional costs to Australian manufactured products that make them more expensive compared to goods made in countries that don’t have a carbon charge.
AFGC supports the development of a global agreement on climate change activities that will maintain industry competitiveness and not compromise the ability of Australian manufacturers to compete in global markets. Return to top Palm Oil
AFGC shares concerns about the destruction of rainforest, and associated habitat, in South East Asia. This destruction is caused by both legal and illegal logging, which, while often driven by the short term cash returns for the timber, can also result in palm oil plantations in the longer term.
AFGC and its members support the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) as the most appropriate means of achieving sustainable palm oil production. It is the only viable and credible means currently available to drive long term sustainability of palm oil production.
AFGC encourages member companies that use palm oil to work with their supply chain partners to support the RSPO. They are strongly encouraged to source and promote the use of sustainable palm oil, especially as more become available.
Return to list Container Deposit Schemes (CDS)AFGC strongly supports the comprehensive co-regulatory arrangements established under the Australian Packaging Covenant as the most appropriate and equitable policy option for managing the environmental impacts of all post-consumer packaging.
AFGC does not support CDS, which focuses only on bottles and cans and makes up no more than 3 per cent of the total waste stream. Mandatory schemes that are applied to a small percentage of the total waste stream are inefficient and inequitable. AFGC supports the findings or numerous reports that confirm that a mandatory scheme such as CDS generate environmental outcomes at a very high cost relative to other options.
Given the advanced development of waste management, recycling and litter management programs in Australia, the introduction of a CDS would create an additional system that would undermine existing recycling programs by creating a duplicate system and increase the costs of implementing both approaches. One comprehensive system is cheaper to run than two. Return to list
Food and Grocery Product SafetyFood and grocery product safety is non-negotiable.
All sections of the food and agriculture industry are responsible for safeguarding the food supply: relevant government agencies, farmers, producers, transporters, processors and manufacturers, storage personnel and retailers. Consumers also have a role to play in maintaining safety.
AFGC considers that it is paramount that manufacturers take every precaution to ensure that consumers receive safe food and grocery products.
The industry gold standard to achieve this is through adoption of preventative safety systems such as Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP). The implementation of such safety systems should be supported by through independent evaluation using third party auditors who have the appropriate personal certification to the National Food Safety Auditor Scheme.
An integral part to product safety assurance, particularly in the event of a safety issue is traceability. AFGC strongly supports introduction of full traceability for food product ingredients. Return to list
Crisis Management The protection of the health and safety of consumers is a fundamental requirement and a legal obligation of all companies involved in the production and sale of food and grocery products.
Suppliers and retailers must take every precaution to ensure products are safe by maintaining the quality of products and ensuring that information provided to consumers is accurate. However, problems sometimes occur which require the recall or withdrawal of products.
AFGC considers that it is absolutely essential that all companies have a crisis management plan in order to be able to deal immediately and effectively with any crisis event that may occur. All companies must follow a consistent, nationally coordinated approach to crisis incidents.
AFGC, in consultation with member companies and stakeholders (retailers, police, health departments), has developed a Crisis Management Guide to assist the food industry in managing crisis events that impact on products. This guide is available free of charge to members and may be purchased by non-members. Return to list
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Our Policies
