KEY POINTS:
Standing firm against increasing public calls for all food sold in supermarkets to show the country of origin, Progressive Enterprises will only label all fresh fruit and vegetables that have not come from New Zealand.
The supermarket giant's main competitor, Foodstuffs, announced today that as well as fresh fruit and vegetables they would also label meat and seafood with countries the food originated from.
Progressive general manager of fresh food Brett Ashley said the stores had a "best practice policy" for fresh foods not sourced from New Zealand.
All of the fresh food on sale in Foodtown, Countdown, Woolworths, SuperValue and FreshChoice stores nationwide had met government regulations and had been certified by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries so they complied with all current safety regulations and protocols, Mr Ashley said.
"We continually assess 'country of origin' labelling across products which are not currently labelled and will be continuing to work with our suppliers towards best practice."
Foodstuffs (NZ) executive manager Melissa Hodd said the company had made the decision to label fresh foods, meat and seafood in response to increased consumer interest about the origin of food as a result of recent international food scares.
"There's been a huge amount of public interest in this, and we've heard what people are saying. We want to be able to assist our customers to make better-informed decisions when they shop in our stores."
Foodstuffs, which operates Pak'n'Save, New World, Write Price, and Shoprite supermarkets, hoped to have the policy fully implemented by December.
The labelling would only apply to fresh foods which comprised one single ingredient, Ms Hodd said.
"Processed food, involving more than one ingredient, is much more complex and it would be difficult and expensive to produce labels for this."
- NZPA
