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James & Wells Intellectual Property Experts Say It Has Been a Testing Year For Health Claims

Wednesday 22 February 2017, 4:42PM

By Beckie Wright

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Stephanie Melbourne recently published an article on the James & Wells website on the global trend towards greater health and wellness, with Supermarket and health food store shelves bursting with products whose labels make claims about their nutrition and health benefits. In order to keep up with this trend, James & Wells have a toolbox of laws and regulations guiding, policing and encouraging the correct use of such claims.  

The article goes on, “New Zealand’s regulators, led by the Commerce Commission and the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI), work hard to police the standards around the proper substantiation of health and product claims. So how’s that crusade going?  This year saw New Zealand move a few steps closer to creating a more robust health claims system with the coming in force of Standard 1.2.7 of the Food Standards Codes governing nutrition, health and related claims. But there’s still a way to go.

“Developed by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) and enforced by MPI, Standard 1.2.7 obliges all business who sell food or import it into New Zealand or Australia to provide certain standardised descriptions if they are wanting to make nutrition content and health claims on their products. MPI has taken a strategic approach by first tackling the more serious and obvious examples of non-adherence, relying on the industry and businesses, including competitors, to alert them to breaches – which can be in online advertising or websites, not just on product labels. 

“Some high-profile, product claim cases this year also showed that the Fair Trading Act (1986) still dominates the discussion when it comes to the overall impression of the product. The Commerce Commission took Frozen Yoghurt Ltd to Court for implying in their branding that their Yoghurt Storey frozen yoghurt products were made out of real yoghurt, when they actually didn’t even come close to meeting the definition of Yoghurt under the Code. Yoghurt Storey’s website also said eating frozen yoghurt had health benefits – claims that were found to be unsubstantiated and misleading.

“Across the Tasman, serious public health concerns around misleading origin labelling prompted the Australian Government to introduce a new food origin labelling system and standard on 1 July this year. The label has a simple kangaroo symbol and text and graphics identifying the percentage of Australian ingredients and clarifying where it was produced, grown, made or packed. While this new standard currently only applies in Australia, watch this space – we could see a similar system adopted here.”

For more information on James & Wells please go to http://www.jaws.co.nz .