Food Safety and You
‘Food Safety’ and ‘Food Security’ are important words to consider when it comes to knowing where your food comes from. We talk often about farm to table eating, and about the benefits of eating fresh everyday. However, how does one ensure food safety and security with meat that’s exported all over the world? To find out, we ask Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) about how Australia, one of the countries with the most consumer confidence in food safety, ensure that consumers have faith in them when it comes to their farmed meat.
Cuisine & Wine Asia (CWA): What does it mean to have food security and food safety to you and your team?
A: Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) is a service provider which believes the foundations laid many years ago have helped the Australian red meat industry evolve into the dynamic and progressive entity we are today. People who enjoy Australian beef and lamb trust that it is safe, ethically-produced and of a high quality. It is this trust that allows Australian livestock producers to stand by what they sell. Maintaining trust in Australian red meat is not something that is left to chance. A system of food safety measures, quality assurance and traceability from paddock to plate and an island nation with great border protection and biosecurity, helps to maintain our disease-free status.
CWA: Why are consumers so confident in Australian food safety?
A: When it comes to access safe and nutritious food, Singapore is among the top in the world. 90% of the food product consumed by the 5.5 million population in Singapore relies primarily on external sources and Australia is one of them, with the largest supply of high-quality beef into Singapore.
Australia is also known around the world for outstanding natural beef, particularly our grass-fed beef that comprises 70% of our production. Our grass-fed cattle graze native and improved pasture varieties — a natural product of a natural environment. Beef that’s all-natural, minimally processed, free of artificial additives. These are the exact standards today’s diners are looking for in both Retail and Food Service scene.
CWA: What kind of checks and balances are in place to help ensure tampering and fraud does not occur?
A: Food fraud is estimated to cost the global food industry $50billion annually. Certain Asian markets, particularly in China and Hong Kong, are experiencing both a growth in pirated and counterfeit goods. There is also a growth in the countries’ middle-class income bracket, resulting in raised consumer awareness of the potential dangers of non-genuine food products, and the means to reduce the risks of purchasing fake products.
When an end consumer encounters a product in a supermarket, or other retailers, they make choices based, in part, on the evidence of the integrity of the product. A number of elements work together to provide consumer confidence before purchase, and MLA believes that multiple components are required to satisfy the consumer need to ensure a high level of product integrity.
The components may include:
• Known composition or addition of a specific tag to meat as a unique identifier
• Packaging materials that may have specific/difficult-to-counterfeit features
• A label that has security features (e.g. holographic labels)
• A label that provides access to information that flows in one or two directions between the Product owner/customer/end-consumer (e.g. QR/NFC codes)
• Auditing and information at points in the chain where a process (such as cutting and repacking) occurs. Many of these components may be supported by data storage and transfer in the cloud, or backed up by verified ledgers such as Blockchain.
MLA has created a catalogue of technology providers that offer product integrity through to consumers.
As Australian brand owners recognise the importance of taking action to ensure integrity in their value chains, a number have worked with MLA to create Requests for Tender that have been circulated to the technology providers in the catalogue. As a result there are a number of partnership projects underway or in the pipeline that will address these concerns for the Australian red meat industry.
Some of these include:
- A validation study of Oritain’s chemical fingerprinting technology that claims to be able to detect and differentiate Australian Beef and Lamb from other geographies/meats using their natural concentrations of trace elements and isotopes.
This will give exporters the ability to audit meat in market and verify its origin.
- Blockchain trials, tracking meat from farm to end consumer in-market.
To find out more about what and how Australia maintains food security, pick up a digital copy of Cuisine & Wine Asia’s May/June issue, available on Magzter or on our own portal! What’s more, get access to all our magazine issues for free on digital until 30th June 2020! Read stories from local and overseas chefs, read new recipes from appetizers to desserts, gain access to exclusive YouTube videos and learn more about the Food & Beverage scene! All these activities will ensure that you make the best use of your time to learn new information!
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