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FOOD REGULATION—

SETTING THE STANDARD

• About FSANZ

• The role of standards in

food regulation

• Recalls

• Incident management

• Traceability

• Uncertainty

• A case study

OUTLINE

• An Australian statutory agency

• Our main function is to develop and administer the Australia New

Zealand Food Standards Code

• Other functions relate to coordination of recalls and incidents,

monitoring and surveillance and providing scientific advice

• Not responsible for policy development or enforcement

ABOUT FSANZ

• What they do

• provide an indication of

acceptability

• establish a measure of

certainty for regulators and

food sellers

• provide consistency

• What they don’t do

• establish legal liability

• determine how food is made

• limit the availability of stronger

risk mitigation

• establish the limit of safety—

non-compliance is not always

unsafe, but could be …

THE ROLE OF STANDARDS IN FOOD

REGULATION

• Applications

• External sponsor

• Can be dealt with under

general or major procedure

• At least one round of public

consultation

• 6-9 months

• Proposals

• Internal

• Can be dealt with under minor,

general or major procedure

• At least one round of public

consultation, except minor

procedure

• No time limits

HOW ARE STANDARDS CHANGED?

After approval by FSANZ Board all variations are referred to the

Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation. Variations can only be

published after consideration by the Forum.

• A policy question …

• Should CoOL be a food standard or a part of

the consumer law?– Food standards should apply equally to domestic

production and imports

– Food standards should be consistent with the consumer

law

• Should the consumer law or the food standard

change, or both?

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN LABELLING

STANDARDS

• recognise that

standards and

other food

laws alone

cannot

mitigate all

risk

completely

RECALLS

• recognises that removing a hazard

from markets is only part of the

response to some food safety

incidents

• Some incidents require coordination of

issues other than safety, such as trade

or public health

INCIDENT MANAGEMENT

• We all want to

know where

our food comes

from

• How much

information do

we need

• What is the

value of that

information?

TRACEABILITY

• Can we afford not to accept uncertainty?

UNCERTAINTY

• Viral contamination a known hazard in horticulture

• Some viruses are resilient and difficult to detect

• The best defence is a combination of GAP and

GHP

• There are no limits for some viruses in the Food

Standards Code

– would limits be effective?

• Recall can be commenced quickly and affectively

after an epidemiological association is established

HOW DOES COOL RELATE TO RTE

FROZEN BERRIES

Policy • country of origin

product labelling

• consumer laws

• imported food

control

Standards settingFSANZ

• Recall coordination

• Incident coordination

• Risk assessment advice

Enforcement• recall

Public health

coordination

Copyright

© Food Standards Australia New Zealand 2014

This work is copyright. You may download, display, print and reproduce this material in unaltered form only

(retaining this notice) for your personal, non-commercial use or use within your organisation. Apart from any

other use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, all other rights are reserved. Requests for further

authorisation should be directed to information@foodstandards.gov.au

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