Editorial: Right brand but wrong reasoning

Should it be compulsory for food, or any products on sale, to carry a label stating their country of origin? An advisory body, Food Standards Australia New Zealand, believes it should be compulsory and the Australian Government has agreed. Ours has decided against it, on the grounds that the safety of food on sale has little to do with its country of origin. The Green Party, which is about to start a "Buy NZ" campaign, is naturally aggrieved.

The New Zealand Government is right. The power to regulate any activity should be resisted unless there is good reason to regulate and the requirement would effectively serve the stated purpose. Otherwise regulations may be made for a purpose that is a mere pretext for trade protection, as would be the case with country-of-origin labels mandated in the name of food safety.

The Greens food safety spokeswoman, Sue Kedgley, gave the game away last month when she said it was "crucial to a successful Buy Kiwi-made campaign because without it consumers won't be able to figure out whether they are buying local or imported produce". Almost as an afterthought she added that it would "enable consumers to know where their food comes from and, by association, what's in it".

Consumers have every right to know what is in manufactured food products but by what "association" does knowing the country of origin advance that knowledge? Is it really important in an assessment of the safety and quality of the ingredients, or is it merely pandering to certain prejudices and snobbishness about the origins of food?

It might be argued that people have a perfect right to be fussy about where food has come from and they have a right to have the information supplied by manufacturers. But if there is no better reason than that for compulsory labelling, it is a dangerous principle. Do they have a right to know the ethnicity of those involved in the production? Of course not, though country of origin could be a proxy for that sort of prejudice too.

The Greens' interest is simply to help consumers avoid imported products, thereby supporting local industry and avoiding "the environmental damage caused by transporting food around the globe". Local industry, of course, is quite capable of advertising the origin of its products voluntarily if it believes that information will boost sales. And in many cases that is done, without need of regulatory compulsion. In other cases, where the status of the product might not be on a par with imported rivals, mandatory labelling could be cruel to local producers.

More often probably, specifying the place of manufacture will be beneficial at home and of dubious value abroad. Those whose business it is to know the various markets are best placed to decide whether it is in the interests of any New Zealand product to advertise its origin, and the Government has rightly decided to leave it to them.

The image of this country is such that its food usually advertises its country of origin prominently and proudly. New Zealand is effectively a brand in food production and, far from making that brand compulsory, the law may need to prohibit its use sometimes. Exporters possibly should not be allowed to state their product country of origin if they do not measure up to the freshness and quality associated with the New Zealand brand.

As a result of the Australian decision, of course, all food exported from this country to there will have to state its country or origin, as will theirs coming here. It will be interesting to see which country gains more from the mandatory label. But "interesting" is not sufficient reason for an imposition that would merely serve some idle curiosity.