Africa's No.1 Food Safety, Quality & Compliance Magazine
UK – Ocado, an online grocer headquartered in the UK, is to scrap ‘best before’ labels on some fruit and vegetables as a way of eradicating food waste. Ocado will launch the initiative on Tuesday for items in its fresh produce range, including apples, pears and citrus fruits. The move is expected to save thousands of tons of edible food…
READ MORE
GLOBAL – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO) experts committee has affirmed that precautionary allergen labelling (PAL) on pre-packaged foods should only be reserved for those situations where inadvertent allergen presence (UAP) cannot be avoided and should not make up for poor allergen management practices or production errors during food manufacturing.…
READ MORE
CHINA – An analysis by the Hong Kong Consumer Council has found cancer-causing substances in all 60 pre-packaged biscuits tested with a majority displaying misleading nutrition labels. The biscuits contained the genotoxic carcinogens glycidol or acrylamide or both, which are contaminants produced during processing. These cancer-causing contaminants often emerge when processing certain ingredients, such as palm oil, at high temperatures.…
READ MORE
UK – UK industry’s first food allergen labeling policy, popularly known as Natasha’s Law, meant to help people suffering from food allergies, intolerances and coeliac disease make safer choices when buying food, has finally come into effect. The new policy, which was introduced after Natasha Ednan-Laperouse died as a direct result of the consumption of a pre-packaged baguette which contained…
READ MORE
CHINA – Chinese researchers have found that increasing the information in labels of Genetically Modified Foods (GMF) can increase the consumers’ willingness to buy them as they will be more informed about the benefits attributed to the GMFs. Most current studies have confirmed that the consumer attitudes and purchase intention toward GMFs are not good. The study was conducted to…
READ MORE
SOUTH AFRICA – South Africa’s Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (agriculture department) has directed food inspectors and those of designated assignees to follow up on misleading or incorrect food labelling in terms of the Agricultural Product Standards Act (APS Act) of 1990. The notice overturns a previous instruction, that had inspectors ignore such labelling, emanating from a…
READ MORE
U.S – The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) to solicit comments and information regarding the labeling of meat and poultry products made using cultured cells derived from animals under FSIS jurisdiction. FSIS will use these comments to inform future regulatory requirements for the labeling of…
READ MORE
U.S – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in collaboration with Center for Diseases and Prevention Control (CDC), state and local partners, is investigating a multistate outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium infections concomitant to the consumption of BrightFarms’- an indoor farming company that specializes in providing locally grown packaged salads – Sunny Crunch packaged salad greens manufactured in the firm’s Rochelle,…
READ MORE
CANADA – Health Canada, a department of the Government of Canada responsible for national health policy and also Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), has revised the nutrition labeling, list of ingredients, and food color requirements of the Food and Drug Regulations in Canada Gazette Part II on Dec. 14, 2016 with the changes to be implemented on a 5-year schedule.…
READ MORE
INDIA – India’s food statutory body, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has issued a directive for amendment in the nomenclature of ‘Blended Edible Oil’ which was recently renamed as ‘Multi Sourced Edible Vegetable Oil’. According to the direction, the ‘Multi Sourced Edible Vegetable Oil’, a term which came into effect on June 8, 2021, after the FSSAI…
READ MORE