I want the right to do my own research.
I want to know where it came from & what’s in it.

What I can’t know about, I won’t use.

Thank you Sue (& helpers) for all your hard work.
Good Luck

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

After reading all the above posts carefully, I have not been persuaded by any of the arguments put forward, that such labeling is a bad idea.

I am very sympathetic to the idea that it does not go half far enough. Each package of food, whatever it is, should say clearly where if originated from in my opinion, and I can see no logical reason why this is a bad idea.

Safety checks on all food wherever it comes from must be a good idea, along with suitable penalties for infringement. Where is the problem. Don’t we all want to be assured that food we purchase from ANYONE else has a good chance of being safe to eat.

Putting up objections that it is’ too costly’, or would ‘discriminate against a trading partner’, are plain silly. Why should they not be proud to announce to all that the product was made, grown, processed, etc in …….land. As far as having voluntary origin labeling, what about those who chose not to label for whatever reason, you would end up with a flawed system that would not be trusted by the consumer.

If for example, all children’s toys were unlabeled ( country of origin), and there was an outbreak of arsenic poisoning of children traced back to say paint on toys. Would there not be an immediate call for labeling. It’s an issue of traceability, in the case of a problem. To me it’s the issue of, if there is a problem with a product, there should be obvious accountability, traceable back from the consumer to the producer.

Surely food is the most important consumer product and all consumers have a right to the maximum possible information.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

That is so ancient. Now, it’s either Halal or it isn’t

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

As for random inspections, why would that necessarily cost the tax payer? The importer might have to certify something is healthy and pay for an import license that covers the costs of random inspections. Produce failing health checks would be turned back and the license revoked and a new license purchased. That would at least improve safety of high risk items like chicken.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

Much easier. Unless we somehow employ enough trusted and accountable inspectors to check all food sourced from China and have them report their findings and what they consider may or may not be harmful. We could do that, but it would cost the taxpyer heaps.

Alternatively we can have a label that says, in effect “this food was produced withinn the jurisdiction of a certain government and you can decide if you trust that jurisdiction to produce this particular product safely”. Comparing this to labelling products with the religion of the producer is silly. The world is divided up into jurisdictions based on nation-states, not on religions.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

it is also unrealistic to say we can excersize choice by simply avoiding any products which don’t have the labelling. country of origin labelling is not prevalent enough to give that much choice.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

you cannot just have a little bit of democracy or just the bits you like, you either respect the will of the people or you do not.

just out of curiosity which is it in your case?

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

I see no need for compulsion. I don’t think origin tells me much of value, for reasons Gerrit outlines.

There will always be information asymmetry, even if the label was a mile long. Most people simply do not require a high level of information to make a decision to buy an apple.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

Fair enough ZT. I’ve just looked at the packaging on a spare CFL bulb sitting around in my office. While it says “Conforms to EN 60968 Safety Standard. Conforms to AS/NZS CISPR 15″ I acknowledge that most shoppers won’t have a clue what that means and won’t be carrying their laptops with them while shopping to look it up. There is no specific mention of mercury, and I agree that there should be if shoppers are to make informed choices.

Interestingly, though, the CFL packaging states “Made in China from local and imported materials”. Yet food that is imported from China doesn’t have to say anything about where it comes from.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

And there’s even less mercury when one uses incandescent bulbs mixed with halogens in a solar powered house – so where’s the benefit in banning them in that situation?

Although, if the latest reports are anything to go by, then vaporised mercury in a CFL is far more dangerous than the solid mercury in amalgam (which I thought had been discontinued). Anyway, that’s a side issue and one that will no doubt be covered in a different post.

Anyway, back to this post. This might be one of those strange, and rare situations where I tentatively support the broad aim behind the Green’s sentiment!

But I actually think that CoOL doesn’t go far enough and is therefore potentially a bad piece of legislation:

*why not the same standards of labeling that all other products have?
* sends the wrong message (all Foreign Food bad)
* doesn’t actually improve health standards
* seems aimed at making just Kiwi businesses do this.

Just to be clear on the last point – this law change requires would require imports to be labeled in some way does it? It wouldn’t require each individual item to be labeled, just a label on the box or on distinct packaging (say, a meat tray)?

I would also be interested in reading any rebuttals to the valid points the NZFSA made when it opposed this Bill: NZFSA says CoOL unCool.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

The reason is that thermal elecricity generation (coal, particularly) emits mercury as a waste product. Moving to CFLs, with consequent reduction in coal fored generation, will result in far less mercury entering the environment than would happen if we stick with the old inefficient incandescents.

If you are worried about kids smashing them, you cn always install halogens, which while not quite as energy efficient as CFLs, will still meet the new energy standards.

In any case, the amount of mercury in one CFL is about 1% of the standard amalgam filling that most parents still allow their children to have in their teeth. Gotta get it into perspective, ZT.

All free mercury in the environment is bad, but CFLs, especially, but not essentially, with proper disposal, will actually reduce, rather than increase, that.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

People might want to make an “informed” choice that anything with mercury should be left outside of their homes. We’ll leave it up to them to research the quantities of mercury, how it vaporises and how many should be installed in the kids bedrooms.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

Rubbish – I was simply taking time out to appropriately label the previous comment by Ek as failing to meet any standards of rational discourse. Don’t blame the label (my comment) on the product (Ek’s comment)

>> The compliance costs to business of doing this are minimal. With a bit of lead-in time so there is no necessity to discard or add to already produced labeling, it’s probably about 10 minutes of a graphic designer’s time. So what are the practical problems?

Or are they all ideological – that you really don’t want people to be able to know where their food is produced?

My reaction stems from the fact that the Greens Fact sheet uses health issues to justify country of origin labeling. Frankly, I think its next to useless and misleading. Look at this from the fact sheet:

>> 40% of pig meat on sale in New Zealand is imported. About 30% (7,726 tonnes in 2006) comes from Canada; some pig herds in Canada are contaminated with the superbug bacteria MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). Pigs in Australia are fed a growth hormone that is not permitted here – last year we imported 10,232 tonnes of pig meat from Australia. Pigs in China have been fed the asthma medication clenbuterol to make them leaner – last year we imported 104 tonnes of preserved pig meat, such as ham, from China.

Well, there is the issue that only “some” of the meat might meet these conditions, and you’d do your best to scare all consumers into avoiding it all, even if the Canadian company is say, an organic specialist. And who is an expert on pig meat sources anyway? You see a label saying “Manitoba Pig” and you expect the customer to know that that’s damn good bacon, but stay clear of Ontario Pork Chops?

If the stuff is illegal, or dangerous, then surely we should insist this stuff be declared, with random testing and turning shipments back and importers losing their import license or whatever. Or even better, developing a local market for “clean food” that earns a certification label.

I pay extra for eggs from happy hens. I wouldn’t make the same decision based on if a chicken lived in Lower Hutt or Masterton. It’s not the location, it’s the company and their practices.

I’m far more interested in knowing that I am eating healthy food, and appreciate that on 90% of the food I buy now, there are labels identifying the maker, the importer and the ingredients. So I presume you are aiming this at vegetables, fruits and “fresh” meat. Things that currently do not have a label.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

It’s a demand to make origin of food labeling mandatory.

The reasons cited are to enable consumers to make informed decisions of one sort or another (usually health, environment, wages). However, different companies can still have different policies within countries, and different shipping and storage methods will prevail even if you get the best organic apples from Norway.

It’s not necessarily the best way to achieve the stated goal, and it still relies on the consumer knowing all there is to know about Shrimps and Prawns coming from Thailand, Chicken from Vietnam, Tomatoes from Australia and Bananas from Ecuador.

The market is already responding with labels on many products identifying the importers address, with growers advertising “organic” or “barn laid” or “spca approved” etc. The Greens push to identify “buy Kiwi” could suit the ardent that refuse to buy anything else.

We could establish certification standards that importers and locals alike aspire to meet in order to make the food more attractive – one that perhaps included random testing and verification of quality. That’s far better than “China Bad, Dunedin Good”. Besides, most of Dunedin have apparently relocated to China anyway.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)