KEY POINTS:
Green MP Sue Kedgley has been campaigning for many years for compulsory labelling of food products with their country of origin. Lately she has made some headway, thanks to the discovery that Sanitarium's peanut butter has been made in China since last year. Sanitarium has hastily returned to its Australian manufacturer and one of New Zealand's two supermarket groups, Foodstuffs, has announced an intention to have all fresh food sold in its stores carry a country of origin label by the end of the year.
Foodstuffs stresses that its decision was "customer driven" and "not a food safety issue". In plain English that means the company has no concerns about the safety of the food it is retailing but it believes customers would like to know where it comes from. And to a degree, customers do.
Just about everybody, when asked, would agree they ought to be told the origin of the food they buy. But plenty of food already carries that information and surveys of consumer behaviour find it is not very influential in buyers' actual decisions. The appearance of fresh food is much more influential than its country of origin when stated.
The true priorities of consumers are no reason to reject mandatory labelling but nor do they argue strongly for it, particularly when the consumer interest is balanced against the harm that compulsory labelling may do to innocent food suppliers in the third world. Campaigners such as Ms Kedgley, generally to be found in parties that profess sympathy for the poor, are not much concerned at the consequences for developing countries because they believe trade is exploitative in any case, and environmentally damaging.
They are in fact much less interested in food safety and consumer information than in protecting local producers and reducing the quantities of goods carried around the globe. Consumers who say that they would like to know the origin of food might not see their interests best served by a new trade barrier. They should be wary that their curiosity can be exploited for quite a different agenda.
New Zealanders should be particularly wary of anything that could inhibit international food trade. Companies that export proudly under a New Zealand brand are nevertheless opponents of compulsory labelling, for good reason. Food is a highly sensitive product everywhere. Countries like to feel they are self-sufficient in food before all else, and prejudice against foreign food is easy to arouse anywhere.
China is suffering that prejudice at present. Nobody has been reported ill from Sanitarium's peanut butter but the fact that the United States has found trace levels of some banned chemicals in imports of Chinese farmed seafood has enabled campaigners such as Ms Kedgley to raise a scare.
Importers of food do not take risks with its safety. It would be commercially perilous for them to do so. Sanitarium says it routinely tested its Chinese-made peanut butter on arrival here and was confident its standards were top of the range. Nevertheless, it bowed to adverse publicity.
The Foodstuffs group had not even faced pressure. It plainly saw the food-labelling campaign as a commercial opportunity. Voluntary labels of origin are readily used by suppliers and retailers who see an advantage in them. Mandatory labelling simply punishes the less fortunate. It is not a guarantee of safety or quality, it does not do away with consumer interest regulations, it is just a tag for discrimination, deserved or not. Who needs it?
