During the last month a food business was fined $7500 for selling food past it’s use by date in South Australia. The business was a well known supermarket which says that the issue occurred because of human error and that all staff have been retrained.

The judge could have placed a fine of up to $250 000 for the breach to the Food Standards Code, but ruled that as there were no ill effects from the consumption of the goods and the public negativity to the situation would be a significant penalty on it’s own . No conviction was recorded.

It is Standard 1.2.5 of the Australian and New Zealand Food Standards Code that states the following for labelled goods;

1.Foods must include a Use-by date where the food should be consumed before a certain date because of health or safety reasons. This indicates the date from which the food is unsafe to consume, usually in circumstances where the food becomes microbiologically unsafe for consumption before it is discernibly spoiled.

2.In circumstances where this does not apply, a Best Before date must be used. The Best Before Date simply indicates that the product may have lost some of its quality after this date passes.

All food businesses must ensure that all staff have a good understanding of the principles and practice of FIFO – first in first out – at all stages in the food process.

If followed properly, FIFO will ensure that product past it’s use by date is not on shelves for sale or use.

Entries to the first Australian International Coffee Awards (AICA) will open on second April (closing on 24 April), with judging at the Melbourne Showgrounds from 7 -9 May 2013.The winners will be announced on 23 May 2013.

It is a roasting competition open to both national and international businesses, and has been created by the Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria (RASV).

It is being held as part of the 2013 International Coffee Expo (MICE) and World Barista Championships.

The CEO of RASV, Mark Sullivan, said; “The RASV is pleased to invite local and international entries into the new AICA, building on the success of the coffee category of the Royal Melbourne Fine Food Awards. Melbourne is renowned for its world class coffee. The AICA will award excellence in roasted coffee blends from around the world and provide trophy and medal winners with unique marketing opportunities.”

For more information about just how important coffee now is to Australians and how much we now drink, have a look at the article at How Safe Is Your Food.

This article was written by Rachelle Williams – The Green Food Safety Coach

According to at least two of the most recognized food lists, the two Michelin star, Noma is the world’s best restaurant, and has been for at least the last two years.

At a price of around $250 per person, it is also not a cheap dining experience.

It is currently in a large amount of trouble due to poor communication and methods allowing staff to work whilst ill. As a result, according to a recent article in Hospitality Magazine, 63 people have ended up with Norovirus.

Itt will indeed be interesting to see if this will have an impact on the restaurant’s rating in next year’s best restaurant lists.

Norovirus is typically associated staff or visitors being ill and not washing hands properly. It is not usually linked to food but is related to poor hygiene. It is one of the most common causes of food poisoning in the USA and is often linked to aged care homes.

For more information about Norovirus, there is a great page set up by Bill Marler, who is a food poisoning related lawyer in the USA.

Water is just a part of our lives and unless we are put into a situation of not having it, we really don’t think about just how important it actually is. Recently in South East Queensland there was a shutdown of the water treatment plants supplying Brisbane and surrounding areas. With floods everywhere it seemed almost ridiculous that a large part of the population of this state had to go into water saving and reduction.

It highlighted how important water is to all of us and just how much we all take it for granted.

In a food business we use water for three basic functions; ingredient, cleaning and transport. It is also used for staff drinking and in garden maintenance.

As an ingredient, it affects texture, mouthfeel, taste, appearance, shelf life and colour, in other words it makes or breaks a product. It is perhaps the most important of ingredients, but is rarely treated with that level of respect. It is simply just added from the tap, and we expect that it will be there at all times.

The water we use in the food business must meet specific requirements, as per the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines. This is to ensure that it adds nothing to the product other than itself and therefore helps maintain food safety. As food businesses we pay for every drop of water we use and then for the treatment of whatever water we put down the drain.

If businesses sat down and truly worked out the cost of each litre of water used, they would probably find that it is one of the most expensive ingredients. Maybe then it would be treated with the respect that it deserves. This is even more important when we stop and think that the amount of water in the world does not increase, what we have is all there has ever been and will always be.

The term “water added” on a food label should mean a whole lot more to a food business than just those two words.

Late last year the Western Australian government launched a confronting advertising program and website aimed at reducing the obesity rate in that state. The LiveLighter campaign shows images of fat inside the body. At the time of launch it was considered by many to be confronting rather than encouraging. The website is www.livelighter.com.au

Recently the Queensland Department of Health  launched the state’s $7.5 million campaign to shock residents into reducing the obesity rate for the Queensland. The program will continue for three years and includes a telephone information and coaching service called “Get Healthy”. The Government is also thinking about using the advertisements from Western Australia as part of the broad campaign.

The Department of Health for Queensland has figures that show that nearly a third of adults in the State obese or overweight, which has doubled in the last 16 years. The report these figures come from is dated 2012 and also shows that one in five children in Queensland is overweight and nearly one third of the total number of children in the state are obese.

Obesity is a major national issue but advertising and campaigns are not the way that we reduce it, it is people who will reduce it. Ultimately, it is up to people themselves as to what they put in their mouths, so hopefully these dramatic advertisements and campaigns can help make people think twice before they eat and about what they eat.

We all know that taste is sweet, salty, bitter and sour. It is also umami. However taste is not just about these five “flavours” but about the feel in the mouth. Taste is also very closely impacted by smell.

Combined with this are our memory. We see potato crisps and expect them to be salty as a base, and will have a strange reaction if we find them to be sweet. The crunchy sound of chips being eaten is something we associate with a savoury taste, so even the sound of food being eaten and serve has an impact on what a food tastes like.

Adding to the complexity of taste is perception, which is often affected by our culture and upbringing. We all have different perceptions of what we like and trying to meet this is an impossible task for food manufacturers.

One of the issues that food businesses have in product development is when reformulating a well known product to reduce it’s fat content. Fat has a major impact on taste, so changing it’s level will impact on both what the product feels like in the mouth as well as on the taste of it.

Tastebuds are incredible and have a life of 10 – 16 days, so regeneration is happening constantly.

Considering that taste is perhaps the most important reason why people eat certain foods, it has been extremely difficult to develop a single piece of equipment that can successfully and consistently measure taste in a lab situation.

A new technology has been developed to record and analyse the sound of the tongue rubbing against food to determine the creaminess of the food. This new technology is called “acoustic tribology’. This will be very helpful but will never be able to fully replicate the amazing thing that is taste.

An artificial nose has been created which is having some success in identifying smells in a lab situation, but to date there has not been a similar piece of equipment to artificially replicate the tongue, and it is probably unlikely to ever happen.

Excessive salt in a diet is well recognized as a contributor to heart issues and disease. It is not the salt itself, but the sodium in it that is the problem.

There have been calls for there to be a maximum allowable level of sodium in foods. The Heart Foundation is one of the groups making this call. It is worth noting that for a food to receive and keep the Heart Foundation Tick, a maximum sodium level must be maintained.

Over the last 12 months, many food manufacturers have reworked their formulations to reduce the salt level in their foods. However, a recent examination of 28 000 products by the George Institute for Global Health has found that there has been an increase of about nine percent in salt levels.

Manufacturers, retailers and the Federal Government have just agreed to a reduction of salt levels to a set target in savoury crackers. This move has been supported by the Australian Food and Grocery Council, amongst others, as an example of how everyone working together can make significant change and improvements.

Reducing salt in crackers and other foods will reduce sodium content in diets and hopefully reduce coronary heart disease and other heart issues. However, as a salty flavor is still needed in these products, the question is how are the manufacturers achieving the required flavor to maintain sales whilst still reducing the salt level?

Also how do we maintain the same shelf life without having the same salt level serving as a preservative?

The answer is product development by Food Technologists. Many people do not realise what a big impact this profession as on their daily lives.

The last set of Australian Dietary Guidelines was released in 2003 and since then, there has been a stronger focus on foods being healthy rather than the idea of specific nutrients at that time. The supply chain has changed and so have consumer expectations.

Therefore the newly released Australian Dietary Guidelines (2013) are different to those of 10 years ago. To develop this new set of Guidelines, a review of about 55,000 scientific publications was done by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

The Guidelines are intended to give Australians and nutrition specialists across the country directions for maintaining the best possible health of us all.

There are many recommendations, including;

1. We need to be physically active and to choose foods and drinks that match what our body’s energy requirements.
2. There are five food groups and we should eat a variety from them all each day.
3. We should keep an eye on the amount of saturated fat, salt, sugar and alcohol we consume.
4. Breastfeeding should be encouraged
5. We should store and handle food carefully

The CEO of the NHMRC, Professor Warwick Anderson, said about the difference between the 2003 and 2013 Guidelines; “The evidence that links a healthy diet and reducing the risk of chronic health problems such as heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, obesity and some cancers is stronger. There is also stronger evidence about the kind of foods that can increase the risk of weight gain and health problems.”

Horse meat is just one of many meats that are regularly eaten throughout the world and causes no harm to those consuming it. It is however, not a meat that is used in food production within Australia and other developed countries, as there are chemicals used on horses that may cause harm to humans and it is also unacceptable to the community to eat this meat..

Businesses can only add meats that are approved for use in this country and that approval is shown in the Food Standards Code. The fundamental principle is that if the law does not allow for something to be used as food, then it cannot be used. This principle also applies in the UK, where this horse meat scandal has blown up.

The food law in all developed countries also has a clear labelling requirement that all ingredients in a food must be shown on the packaging.

The situation is that somehow a stock of horse meat from somewhere has found it’s way into food products which have no labelling showing that it is there.

There are three questions that have to be answered to bring back consumer confidence in the food industry;

• How did it get there?
• Is it a cover up because there is nothing on labels to declare it?
• Are there any health implications if the products are eaten?

The issue of horse meat being identified as being in some foods in the UK is significantly bigger than it seems at first. This issue has not only specific business implications but national and internationals impacts as well.

For horse meat to get into the human food chain, means that there are systems which have just simply failed not only within specific businesses but within the food industry as a whole.

There will be a strong investigation into this situation and it is already obvious that heads will roll when the mystery of how and why this happened eventually becomes clear. However we should not expect this mystery to be solved rapidly and the results will echo around the UK’s food industry and those around the world. There have already been calls for more regulation and monitoring by governments.

This article was written by Rachelle Williams – The Green Food Safety Coach, for Food Safety Australia.

To date there have been at least 3 deaths related to the latest Listeriosis outbreak in Australia. Apparently around 23 people are sick and one women has miscarried as a result of having the illness.

Listeriosis is an illness resulting from a food poisoning caused by a member of the Listeria group of bacteria. The particular species that is of main concern is Listeria monocytogenes, which can cause spontaneous miscarriages.

This bacteria is what is known as a facultative anaerobe, which means that even though it can grow in a normal oxygen environment, it really prefers an environment that has higher carbon dioxide levels. This means that foods that have been vacuum packed have a perfect environment for this bacteria.

It is also very comfortable growing at colder temperatures than most other food poisoning bacteria, so the vacuum packed deli items and cheeses are prime products for the growth of Listeria monocytogenes.

It is due to this bacteria specifically, that cheesemakers in this country are prevented from producing cheese with unpasteurized milk. It has also stopped the import of most unpasteurized milk cheeses from overseas. These people and others around the world believe that cheese tastes better when made form unpasteurized milks but to protect the population, food law prevents it.

This bacteria is responsible for potentially  half of all the microbiological product recalls in Australia. It is a dangerous bacteria and we have laws to protect us from it, as long as these requirements are followed.

Listeria monocytogenes can also be extremely difficult to clean out of a food business once it takes hold, so it is considered to be a major pathogen in this and most other countries.

For more information about Listeria go to http://www.about-listeria.com/