The Advertiser | By Catherine Hockley | December 7, 2001
Labels will be compulsory on food produced from genetically modified ingredients.
Food produced from today will have to comply with the Australia New Zealand Food Authority rules. But consumers are unlikely to see GM-labelled products on supermarket shelves immediately.
Manufacturers have been given a period of grace, meaning products packaged before today can stay on supermarket shelves for 12 months without the explicit labelling.
ANZFA managing director Ian Lindenmayer said many processors had chosen to replace GM ingredients with non-GM before the new laws came into effect.
The Australian Food and Grocery Council's Mitchell Hooke said producers did not want to "be the fall guy for the controversy that surrounds GM food".
Mr Hooke said the development of GM foods at this stage benefited farmers, with no cost savings to be passed on to consumers.
He estimated that less than 5 per cent of foods in Australian supermarkets would have to comply with the labelling law.
