NZL/84
WTO/TBT
NZ Nouvelle-Zélande
  • 67 - Technologie alimentaire
2018-11-19
2018-09-20

Imported and domestically produced fruit, vegetables, meat, fish and seafood which are fresh or frozen and no more than minimally processed; and cured pork sold in New Zealand; Food products in general (ICS 67.040)

Final report: Consumers' Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill (13 page(s), in English)

The Consumers' Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill will provide for regulations to be made prescribing requirements for the disclosure of a regulated food's country or place of origin.

If the Consumers' Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill passes and regulations are drafted, the content of the regulations will also be notified at that stage to the Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade.

The regulated foods must include food that:

1.    is either

                        1.    only 1 type of fruit, vegetable, meat, fish or seafood that

                                        1.    is fresh (even if previously frozen) or frozen and is not, for example, dried, cured, or pickled; and

                                        2.    is no more than minimally processed (for example, by being cut, minced, filleted, or surface treated); or

2.    cured pork; and

2.    is supplied, offered or advertised for supply, at retail, including on an Internet site; and

3.    is not supplied, or offered or advertised for supply

                      1.   by any of the following for immediate consumption: a restaurant, cafeteria, takeaway shop, canteen or similar place, or a caterer; or

                      2.   at a fundraising event; and

4.    is packaged or unpackaged.

Foods will need to be labelled with the country or place where they were grown. This would be, for example, where the food was harvested, caught or raised, but not where the food was merely packaged, manufactured or processed.

The regulations will be able to exempt certain foods from the scope of foods covered, where it would be unduly onerous for those foods to comply or it would not help consumers to make informed decisions about purchasing the food. Detail such as the definitions of foods, what it means for a food to be 'minimally processed', and requirements for how disclosure can be made (e.g. through labels or signage) will be set out in the regulations which will be made after the Bill is passed.