Andrew Hoggard: Food Safety Minister on govt opting out of changes to infant formula rules

The Government has come down in favour of dairy companies - opting out of an international infant formula proposal.

Rules designed by Food Standards Australia and New Zealand restrict labelling - and only let pharmacies and healthcare providers sell specialist formula.

Industry giant Danone threatened to withdraw from New Zealand if it went through - taking away 441 jobs.

Food Safety Minister Andrew Hoggard told Heather Du Plessis-Allan they want New Zealand products to remain competitive.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So the government's made the call to opt out of
propose new infant formula rules. Now, these rules would have
led to the labels being removed from the infant formula tins,
some being taken off the supermarket shelves, altogether sold only
at pharmacies, doctors, nutritionists and so on. Two weeks ago,
Ossie ministers overruled New Zealand and voted to adopt the rules.
Cabinet has today decided to ditch the standards and develop
our own. Andrew Hogat is the Food Safety Minister.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Hey, Andrew hi hever, how are you very well?

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Thank you? Are you going to get You're going to
get in trouble with the Aussies.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
For this, I don't think so. I made it fairly
clear in the meeting that minutes in the communicate from
the meeting that New Zealand would be considering its options
in regards to opting out. So they were pretty well
clear as to where we stood. And you know, we've
considered and this is our answer.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
When we opt out. Are we opting out of the
whole code or just this particular part.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Just well, we're opting out of this standard on infant
formula in saying that, as I mentioned last time, was
on nine nine percent of it is pretty damn good.
So in creating a new New Zealand standard, we would
be using all of that good stuff and just where

(01:12):
you know it's going to have an impact on our
exporters in the Chinese market, we would be looking to
have those that modification that works for us.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
What is the impact on our exporters in the Chinese.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Market, Well, I mean they've basically said that at the moment,
the two main companies involved in known in A two
that they're at a pretty competitive disadvantage to European companies
that are able to put list ingredients on their tins.
A two in particular was pretty concerned that they couldn't

(01:50):
advertise the fact on the front of the tin that
has made with the A two routeing as in the
name and yes, so that they were. They've shown the
data over the last year how they've been slipping in
sales to particularly products from Europe. So that puts us

(02:11):
on a bit of an unleveled playing field, or even
more of an unleveled playing field with European providers.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Okay, so now things should improve, but in terms of
us being able to then send infant formula over to Australia.
This will create a wrinkle, won't it.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
There will be a wrinkle, but I don't think it's
something that can't be worked through.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
It is our market of infant formula to ASSI.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
This is it's around one hundred fifty to three I
can't remember the exact number, but it's not as big
as the.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Market saying no, of course not. But are you saying
one fifty to three hundred million.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
I think it's one hundred and fifty million.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
That's massive, Okay, yeah, but there.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Is ways around so we can basically, you know, all
that's required is they relabel it for Australian.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Markets, Andrew sure like they're not going to have to
do a different run for the Aussies.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
It's just literally the same. Where we're focusing on the
labeling the composition. Our intention is to be the competition.
The composition sorry to be exactly the same, so there
won't be an issue there.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Are the Aussies going to be decent about this because
they haven't been, Like I mean, you went into that
meeting thinking you could get a review. They obviously were
not even up for being decent about that. Are they
going to be decent about this?

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Look, there wasn't any animosity in the meeting, and I
mean to be fair for them. You know that they
were of the attitude that we've been working on this
for eleven years. The report says everything's fine and they
were wanting to move on with it, whereas I was
quite concerned with the uncertainty. But there wasn't any animosity,

(03:50):
So I don't see any reason why there should be
any animosity going forward. Good.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Hey, Andrew, thank you so much for your time. Andrew Hoggard,
food Safety Minister.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
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