Call for CoOL on food service seafood

Champagne is sparkling wine made only in the Champagne region, and no other sparkling wine can use that name. The same applies to cheeses and other foods made in specific regions in France.

This is the most obvious form of Country of Origin Labelling (CoOL) but in Australia now, it is a requirement that foods must show where that food was produced using a required format.

The requirement only applies at this stage to packaged foods.

CoOl is also a tool to assist with reducing food fraud, where a food is labelled as one thing, when it may in fact be something else.

There are several food categories which are more involved in food fraud than others, and seafood is high on that list.

The seafood industry is calling for the CoOL requirement to be extended to the food service industry. Seafood sold in supermarkets must show where it has come from, but this does not apply to restaurants, cafes, bistros, pubs, clubs and take aways.

This means  that the barramundi you are buying in the fish and chip shop does not have to be labelled to tell you that it is from Australia.

Seafood Industry Australia (SIA) CEO Jane Lovell said; “The new laws don’t apply food sold in places like restaurants, cafes, pubs, clubs and fish and chip shops. We want to see these labelling laws extended to foodservice. At the supermarket and when you buy fresh fish, by law, all seafood has to be labelled with its country of origin. But, when you go out to dine, there is no obligation to label where the seafood you are about to order and eat comes from. What SIA can’t understand what the difference is – the government believes consumers have a right to know where their seafood comes in retail – why not when they are eating out?”

According to SIA 70% of seafood eaten in Australia is imported, so it seems that it is important to let us know what seafood is and isn’t imported, so we can make a choice. Since 2008, the Northern Territory government has required that all cooked and pre-prepared seafood in the foodservice industry must show it’s country of origin.

The SIA is calling for Australian seafood to be show as Australian on menus and imported seafood to be shown as an”I”, with an explanation on themeaning on the menu.