Food Processing Industry Report

The Australian Senate has had a Select Committee examining the Food Processing Industry and it’s report was released in August.

In Committee was to review the following areas;

• the competitiveness and future viability of Australia’s food processing sector in global markets
• the regulatory environment for Australia’s food processing and manufacturing companies
• the impact of Australia’s competition regime and the food retail sector, on the food processing sector, including the effectiveness of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010;
• the effectiveness of anti-dumping rules;
• the costs of production inputs including raw materials, labour, energy and water;
• the effect of international anti-free trade measures;
• the access to efficient and quality infrastructure, investment capital and skilled labour and skills training.

The report includes 35 recommendations, including;

• recommendations for government to monitor how big carbon emitters pass on the costs of the carbon price into the supply chain
• The government initiate an independent review of the competition provisions of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010
• a food supply chain ombudsman within the ongoing roles of the ACCC
• the major Australian supermarkets voluntarily establish benchmarks within their corporate social responsibility policies to measure and improve satisfaction of suppliers in dealing with the supermarkets
• country of origin labelling, and the labelling of products in general

The full report can be found here