Does your packaged food meet the new country of origin labelling (CoOL)requirements?
Food packaged after 1 July 2018 for sale in Australia must meet the CoOL requirements under the Australian Consumer Law Country of Origin Food Labelling Information Standard (Standard).
Existing stock with old labels may be sold until the end of its shelf life.
However, food businesses risk considerable penalties if labels applied after 1 July 2018 have not been satisfying the CoOL requirements.
For corporations, the maximum penalty for a contravention is the greater of:
- $10,000,000
- If the court can determine the value of the benefit that the company, and any related body corporate to that company, have obtained directly or indirectly and that is reasonably attributable to the contravening act or omission – 3 times the value of that benefit; and
- If the court cannot determine the benefit obtained from the contravention, 10% of the annual turnover of the company in the 12 month period ending at the end of the month in which the contravening act or omission occurred or started to occur.
CoOL requirements have changed in relation to the:
- ‘Substantial transformation test’ and how this applies to ‘made in’ origin claims; and
- Mandatory labels for imported foods and packaged foods ‘grown’, ‘produced’, ‘made’ or ‘packaged’ in Australia.