A few weeks back, controversy erupted when the Assistant Health Minister, Fiona Nash, pulled down a new food health labeling website, which had been created after two years of careful study and consultation by a committee of health, industry and consumer groups. The website, which was due to go live earlier this month, was designed to enable industry to calculate their own star ratings and begin voluntarily displaying them on packaging.
It was later revealed that Nash’s chief of staff, Alastair Furniva, had a wife, Tracey Cain, who headed a public relations company which had lobbied for food companies, including multinational snack food company, Mondelez, which produces popular products like Kraft Strip Cheese, Ritz Crackers, and Kraft Peanut Butter.
Now consumer group Choice, using the defunct healthy food star rating system, has reportedly uncovered that many of Mondelez’s products score poorly under the rating system, providing fuel to the claim that Minister Nash has been captured by the food industry. From the Canberra Times:
Choice compared three products from multinational snack foods company Mondelez with similar products, after it called the system “ill-founded, unscientific and confusing”.
Choice found Mondelez’s Kraft Strip Cheese received only two out of five stars, compared to Bega’s Stringers, which got 4½ stars. Mondelez’s Ritz Crackers got half a star, compared to Arnott’s Jatz Original, which got two.
Mondelez has been drawn into the controversy surrounding Senator Nash’s closure of the food star rating website, after it was revealed her chief of staff was involved and was also a co-owner of a lobbying firm that worked for the brand.
Ms Cartwright said Choice wanted to see what impact the ratings would have on companies that had criticised the ratings.
“The health stars shot down the Mondelez product each time,” she said…
A spokeswoman for Mondelez International said the system would mislead consumers and make labels more confusing.
To her credit, Minister Nash has since stated that she plans to begin the food labeling system in the middle of the year, after bugs have been ironed out. In the meantime, it would help her image if she employed a chief of staff free of obvious conflicts with the food industry.
