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The NSW Food Authority is helping consumers and industry navigate the often overwhelming world of food labels by launching an online, interactive food labelling hub.
NSW Food Authority CEO Dr Lisa Szabo said she was excited to provide a resource to consumers that will help them make informed choices about food and help people manage their food choices.
"We recognise that with so much information out there it can be difficult to find it and understand it," Dr Szabo said.
"One of our roles as the NSW Food Authority is to educate people by providing information to enable them to make informed choices and this initiative achieves that.
"It is essentially an information hub in your pocket to help you to not only read a food label but to understand what it is telling you.
"It is designed to be mobile and tablet friendly so people can access food labelling information anytime, anywhere.
"One of the features of the hub sure to appeal to users is the 3D function where a virtual cereal box pops up and visually guides people through the type of information you might expect to see on food packaging."
Food sold in Australia must comply with the Food Standards Code and one of those requirements is correct labelling.
By law a food label must stipulate various things like a list of the ingredients, warning or advisory statements about the presence of allergens, a nutritional information panel, the shelf life of a product be it ‘use by’ or ‘best before’ dates and the country of origin.
Dr Szabo said in addition to being a much needed resource for consumers, the food labelling hub was also designed to assist industry in complying with regulations.
"The labelling hub is also of benefit to food businesses in providing confidence and certainty by helping them understand how to correctly label food so it meets regulatory requirements.
"This will be a real ‘one-stop-shop’ resource for both consumers and industry." The food labelling hub can be found at www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/labelling