Pork's country-of-origin should be labelled more clearly, says parliamentary review committee of New Zealand

Parliament’s Regulations Review Committee has recommended the Government consider clearer country-of-origin labelling requirements for pork products. Last year NZPork complained to the select committee that food labelling regulations did not ensure that consumers had accurate information about the country-of-origin of pork . NZPork chief executive Brent Kleiss said the consumer information standards regulations allowed manufacturers to advertise that a pork product such as bacon or ham was “made in New Zealand”, while putting on the back in fine print a list of countries the pork might be sourced from. Clear country-of-origin labelling allowed consumers to make informed purchasing decisions, he said. “We have been concerned that products are being sold to consumers as ‘made in New Zealand’ when they are not made from born-and-raised New Zealand pork. “The fact that these products contain meat from foreign sources is only mentioned in small print on the back of the product. This ...