The following information is from the Food Standards Australia New Zealand website and is included here with permission.

Standard 1.6.1 – Microbiological Limits for Food became part of the Food Standards Code in December 2000. Developments since that time mean there is a need to review the standard’s current requirements.

These include more recent scientific evidence about specific food safety concerns, development of preventative food safety standards; food safety programs for high risk businesses and primary production and processing standards.

Work has also progressed internationally on using different risk management tools in a food safety control system. Microbiological criteria have also been established for Listeria monocytogenes in ready-to-eat foods and Cronobacter sakazakii and Salmonella spp in powdered infant formula.

FSANZ has prepared a background paper outlining issues to be covered in the review and the principles and guidelines that will underpin this work.

What is being considered in the review?

Criteria for Listeria monocytogenes

• Consistency with associated guidance material (e.g. the Recall Guidelines for Packaged Ready-to-Eat Foods Found to Contain Listeria monocytogenes at Point of Sale).
• Alignment with recently finalised international (Codex) standards (e.g. Listeria monocytogenes in RTE foods).

Microbiological limits for indicator/index organisms

• Suitability for regulatory purposes.
• Use as process hygiene criteria (application at various points in production).

Reference to prescribed methods of analysis

• Current reference to Australian/New Zealand Standard Methods for Food Microbiology 1766.

Limits for infant formula

• Alignment with recently finalised international (Codex) standards (e.g. Cronobacter sakazakii and Salmonella in infant formula).

Relevance of some microbiological limits in the context of recently finalised food safety standards.

How will the review work?

The review will be broken up into stages. In 2012 FSANZ will be working on:

• developing microbiological criteria for L. monocytogenes in ready-to-eat foods in line with international approaches
• updating microbiological reference/guidance criteria (taking into account existing guideline documents)
• reviewing microbiological criteria for powdered infant formula
• reviewing criteria for raw milk products.

Would you like to be kept informed of progress?

Transparency and public consultation are an important part of the standards development process. If you wish to be placed on a mailing list for future advice on changes to Standard 1.6.1, contact the Standards Management Officer at standards.management@foodstandards.gov.au

From December 2009 to December 2010, more than 100 tonnes of food was illegally imported into Australia. The food, including; dim sims, ice cream and raw meat, was imported into Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne from South Korea.

The major fear in this case is that Foot and Mouth Disease is widespread in South Korea, and would decimate our livestock industry if it takes root here.

The event was identified and presented to the current Australian Senate Estimates Committee.

Senator Colbeck,, a member of the Committee, released the report and said; “This problem was discovered as part of an audit but how much longer could it have gone on before the illegal importations were uncovered? The Biosecurity Services Group is starting to come clean about the scale of a biosecurity risk to Australian agriculture. Products had been widely distributed and were retrieved from about 300 retail premises, but we cannot be sure it was all found or how much was consumed. I’m concerned at how much product slipped through the net. The best I could get from the Department was that they “think they have got most of it”,”

With the sheer volume of imported goods, and especially food, coming into Australia, it is physically impossible for the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service to inspect every container.

This means there is a lot of food coming in that has not been inspected and although it is a requirement that imported food must meet the Food Standards Code, this audit result raises some very important and scary questions.

Australia is recognised as having the highest level of skin cancers in the world. It is not a first place we can be proud of. It would tend to indicate that, as a nation, we spend a lot of time in the sun.

However there is strong evidence now emerging that Australians are becoming more and more deficient in Vitamin D.

A new study at Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, in Perth Western Australia has found that this deficiency is also likely to be affecting the language skills of children born from women with it.

The study involved the checking of Vitamin D concentrations in more than 740 pregnant women and then up to 17 years monitoring of the children’s behaviour and development. It found that those mothers with lower Vitamin D levels have a higher likelihood of having children with language difficulties.

“The developing baby is completely reliant on the mother for its Vitamin D levels and what we have shown is that this might have an impact on the child’s brain development,” said Lead author, Associate Professor Andrew Whitehouse.

The next level of the study is the addition of Vitamin D supplements to the diets of pregnant women to determine if there is an improvement in language skills from the original study results.

http://www.ichr.uwa.edu.au/media/1346

Whitehouse, A.J.O., Holt, B.J., Serralha, M., Holt, P.G., Kusel, M.M.H., Hart P.H. (in press). “Maternal serum vitamin D levels during pregnancy and offspring neurocognitive development.” Pediatrics.

For more information on the impacts and symptoms of Vitamin D deficiency http://www.racgp.org.au/afp/200403/20040311pasco.pdf

The Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC), is the body which represents the major food companies in this country, and has just made a submission to the Federal Treasury for consideration in the 2012 Budget.

The AFGC has long been trying to encourage the Federal Government to implement a Supermarket Ombudsman as a major way of starting to reduce the pressure that currently exists on manufacturers due to the lack of competition in the supermarket sector. With Coles and Woolworths controlling around 80 percent of the supermarket sector, there is currently little opportunity for manufacturers to negotiate prices or products. It is believed that a specific Ombudsman will help make trading fair.

This is only part of the submission, there is also a call to develop and then implement a Fair Trading Code of Conduct for the retail sector. The submissions proposes that the Ombudsman be given the jurisdiction of this Code and be able to enforce it with significant fines and penalties. It is suggested that all those retailers with 20 percent of more of their market should implement the Code.

A “Name and Shame” list, like that used by the New South Wales Food Authority for Food Standards Code non compliances, is also suggested for the Ombudsman.

The National Food Plan is being developed currently to provide security to our food supply into the future, and the AFGC submission suggests that this Plan be managed by a Federal Parliamentary Secretary based in the Prime Minister’s Department, to recognise it’s importance. This submission also calls for specific positions and groups to support the ongoing development and maintenance of the National Food Plan.

Another part of the submission is requesting that all changes to regulations at both federal and state / territory level have stakeholder consultation before they are released. Some changes have happened at a State level in recent months that had little consultation with business and this is not giving everyone involved some say. Food Standards Australia New Zealand has a strong consultation process and something similar should be in place for all proposals and submissions to all food law nationally.

With the politics involved in this specific Budget, and the next, there will be a close examination by the Treasury by all submissions, including this by the AFGC.

The following is from a media release from Food Standards Australia New Zealand and is included with permission.

Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) today called for submissions on a draft nutrition, health and related claims Standard.

FSANZ Chief Executive Officer Steve McCutcheon said the proposed new standard would regulate voluntary statements made by manufacturers on labels about the nutrition content of a food, or a relationship between a food and health.

“There are two principal types of claims; nutrition content claims such as ‘low in fat’ or ‘source of calcium’, and health claims, which refer to a relationship between a food and health, such as calcium and bone health,” Mr McCutcheon said.

FSANZ is also seeking comment on the part of the proposal considering regulation of ‘fat free’ and ‘percentage fat free’ claims.

The proposal includes refinements to a previous draft standard, which was subject to public consultation in 2009. FSANZ has also considered issues arising from a Review of the draft Standard requested by the Legislative and Governance Forum on Food Regulation.

FSANZ acknowledges there have been diverse stakeholder opinions about this complex proposal, but believes the draft standard strikes a balance between disparate views.

“FSANZ welcomes comments from government agencies, public health professionals, industry and the community on this draft of the proposed new standard,” Mr McCutcheon said.

Submissions close on 16 March 2012.

Media contact: 0401 714 265 (Australia) or email media@foodstandards.gov.au

Plasma is a term we are all becoming more familiar with, as a large percentage of us now have plasma TVs. Most of us know of three states of matter; solid liquid and gas. Plasma is the fourth state, and is a high energy, charged mixture of gaseous atoms, ions and electrons. It occurs when a spark or intense heat is applied to a gas. There is a lot of plasma on Earth, but the one example we all see daily is the sun.

Microbiologists and other food safety specialists are constantly looking for alternatives or improvements in the methods for controlling or eliminating food borne micro-organisms.

An article from a study at Drexel University was published in the Journal of Food Protection in January 2012, which shows that cold plasma may be one of these methods.

Samples of raw chicken were inoculated with a type of Salmonella and Campylobacter and then exposed to the plasma for increasing times.

The results were encouraging by showing a total or near total elimination of the bacteria on the chicken at low levels and a huge reduction at higher concentrations.

Plasma is expensive to produce so it is not necessarily the first choice in food processing, but it has one major advantage, it is not hot and therefore does not change any quality aspects of the food.

There are many potential applications for plasma, besides as a food processing aid, including biomedical treatments and environmental remediation.

Plasma is being described in this study as “the fourth state of matter,”. The study claims plasma has a wide range of potential applications, including energy production and that the control, biomedical treatments and environmental remediation.

Gluten is a protein found in wheat, oats, barley and rye. It helps with the structure of bread and other baked goods. Some people have a problem with digesting this protein and it can lead to significant health issues in these individuals, including flatulence, loss of part of the gut, constipation and potentially death. The condition is called Coeliac Disease.

Gluten is the number one food allergen in Australia and all food manufacturers and hospitality businesses are now targeting this market. Gluten free is now acknowledged as mainstream due to the large number of people who either are, or claim to be, allergic to gluten.

Currently the Food Standards Code defines “gluten free” as “no detectable gluten” and “no ingredient derived from oats or malt”. The problem at the moment is that this definition is making it difficult for manufacturers to meet consistently because the limit of detection has now gone as low as 3ppm due to advances in technology.

Coeliac Australia, is the group that represents those suffering this disease, has just made a submission to alter the definition in the Code to bring it into line with the internationally accepted definition in Codex Alimentarius. Both Europe and the United States have both also accepted that less than 20ppm be the official international definition.

A recall in Victoria recently because of a gluten content of 8ppm highlighted that the costs and inconvenience of the current definition is prohibitive to business in this country.

The other problem is that currently a product labelled as Gluten Free in Europe will not necessarily be gluten free in Australia and this is making Australia appear to be the odd one out when there is no medical reason for doing so.

If the group that represents those who are most impacted by gluten are asking for the definition to be changed to make it easier for people and businesses, it should be a good reason to seriously consider making that change.

Out of the 2500 entries in the 2011 Guild of Fine Food World Cheese Awards, two of the gold medals went to the Australian specialty cheese manufacturer, Jindi. This backs up the four medals from the 2009 Awards.

Jindi is Australia’s largest privately owned Cheese manufacturer and is situated in Gippsland in Victoria.

The company submitted four cheeses in this year’s award and two of them took home the gold medal for their category.

The ‘Fire Engine Red” (a washed rind cheese) was the gold medal winner in the ‘Pont L’Eveque, Livarot’ category – which it also took out in 2009.

The ‘Heritage Blue’ was also the gold medal winner in that category.

In the 2011, there were 200 judges from 34 countries, making the awarding of these gold medals to the Jindi Cheeses truly world class recognition.

Franck Beaurain , the Jindi CEO and Head Cheesemaker, said, “This shows that Australian cheeses can be competitive on the world stage, especially given the range of cheeses we were competing against.”

With this being the festive season; the following are some hints from the Jindi website (http://www.jindi.com.au) for the eating and purchasing of cheese;

• Buy what you require for a single use and eat it in its entirety
• Where possible, store white and blue mould cheese in its original packaging. Otherwise use foil or cling wrap
• Take cheese out of fridge an hour before serving – in summer this can be reduced to 20 minutes
• Eating cheese closer to the best before date will increase the sharpness of its flavour
• As in France, cheese is best eaten as a finale to a meal rather than an appetiser
• Soft cheeses are best served on crusty breads
• Wine and cheese should be matched by similarities – the stronger the cheese, the heavier the wine

The Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council has been the body determining food regulation for many years. Recently the first meeting of it’s replacement, the Legislative and Governance Forum on Food Regulation, was held to discuss the Food Labelling Review Report (sometimes known as the Blewett report).

The major decision made on the day was the agreement, by all Ministers, to the development of a National Nutrition Policy. This will make nutrition and preventative health the centre of any reforms to food labelling.

Government guidelines from the Policy will then set the role that our food standards will have in supporting the objectives of public health and therefore, the direction that Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) will take in the future in the development and maintenance of the Food Standards Code.

It was a busy meeting, with other major decisions made including;

Front-of-pack labelling -An agreement that some form of easy to understand front of pack labelling is required for packaged foods, however, it will not be in the form of the traffic lights recommended in the Blewett Report. The Forum has set a deadline of a year for the discussions with all stakeholders and the development of a suitable system.

Pregnancy warning labels on alcohol –voluntary pregnancy labelling will be allowed for two years before this becomes a requirement.

Health claims on packaged foods and drinks –FSANZ has been given the task of doing consultation with all stakeholders on the draft standard for Nutrition, Health and Related Claims.

Food Safety Management Policy Guideline – for retail and food service sectors. It was agreed that this needs to be developed as a framework for standardising the food safety approach in these industry sectors across the country.

The Forum is chaired by the Catherine King, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing, who said, “In considering its response to the recommendations, the Forum proposed actions over the next five years that endeavour to improve information on food labels to meet consumers’ needs, and minimize regulatory burden on industry and barriers to trade.”

So far 13 people have been confirmed as having gastroenteritis due to Salmonella in Canberra, since the 25 November and more are expected. Of these, five have been hospitalised to date to assist with dehydration.

Testing has identified that a mayonnaise made from raw eggs used at a bakery is the likely source of the outbreak. Other testing is also being undertaken.

According to the ACT Chief Minister, there are usually up to 100 cases of Salmonella food poisoning in the ACT between November and April, so with this outbreak, the territory is well on it’s way to meeting this.

Salmonella species are easily killed by heat so gastroenteritis from them is often spread via undercooked foods or through cross contamination of foods / surfaces and from person to person.

Salmonella is one of the leading cause of food borne illness in Australia.

The following are the basic ways to prevent Salmonella issues in food businesses;

• Keeping all surfaces cleaned and sanitised
• Good staff hygiene
• Good and regular hand washing
• Keeping hot foods above 60C
• Keeping cold foods below 5C
• Check temperatures and keep records