CFA member CHOICE reports progress on its better food labelling campaign
Major fast food chain, Hungry Jacks, announced this week that it’s rolling out kilojoule content labelling on menu boards across Australia.
In addition to this, some states and territories are already moving to introduce mandatory kilojoule content labelling for fast food outlets. For example:
- Fast food chains with 20 or more locations in New South Wales or 50 plus locations nationally must display the kilojoule content of standard food items.
- A one-year implementation period will end on 1 February 2012 when penalty provisions will commence.
CHOICE welcomes the efforts of the states and territories to ensure that consumers can access the information they need to make informed decisions about what they eat.
However, we want to see nationally consistent kilojoule content labelling at the point of sale. In our submission to the expert panel that reviewed food labelling, we recommended that mandatory labelling provisions should be extended to fast food restaurants.
CHOICE was pleased to see the expert panel recommend in its final report that kilojoule content should be declared for standard food items on menus, menu boards or close to food displays in fast food outlets. We were also encouraged by the panel’s recommendation that fast food outlets should provide easily accessible information equivalent to the Nutrition Information Panel.
We want to see these recommendations implemented by governments around Australia when they respond to the review in December 2011. These recommendations support our Better Food Labelling campaign priorities which include an approach to food labelling that puts consumers first.
In the meantime, we congratulate the states and territories that are introducing consistent kilojoule content labelling laws and businesses like Hungry Jacks that are taking steps to give their customers the information they need to make informed decisions.
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