Pretoria - The Department of Trade and Industry (dti) and the National Consumer Commission (NCC) will host a seminar on food labelling and consumer protection this week.
Minister Rob Davies said the mislabelling of various food products is common in South Africa and does not only violate food regulations but also poses economic, ethical and health challenges.
“Consumers face violations such as being offered products with expired dates, defacing of labels, no labels and overall failure to label properly. Government is therefore not only concerned about the failure of some entities in the food value chain to stick to the parameters of the law in order to ensure consumer safety but also the impact mislabelling has on producers, importers and retailers of various food products.
“The inappropriate disclosure of country of origin particularly creates challenges for both consumers and companies and hence the need to adhere to the rules of origin parameters as commonly accepted in international trade,” said Minister Davies.
The seminar will take a holistic view in respect of how issues of food labelling affect consumers, the domestic as well as the interests of South African companies abroad.
The seminar will focus on the trends and developments in respect of the labelling of food products in the consumer market, the food labelling regulations within the context of the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) of 2008 in South Africa and the respective state of enforcement and compliance or lack thereof.
The seminar, which will be held on Wednesday, will target all stakeholders in the food industry, specifically food industry associations in the various sub-sectors, policy makers, retailers and importers among others. – SAnews.gov.za
