Stamping eggs with a farm
identification code is part of a national food safety scheme which is
being implemented differently in each State. In Victoria, the State
Government delayed the compulsory introduction of egg stamping until
November 25 this year.
The Government says it
will exempt producers with less than 50 hens from the new
requirements. Some producers claim that the whole concept is a farce
and will do nothing to improve food safety or traceability.
Egg stamping will help to
solve the egg substitution rort which has been rife for years but
probably first came to general notice in Victoria during 2007 with a
high profile case when a company was fined for labelling eggs as
organic when they were from conventional farms.
In 2012, a NSW barn egg
farm was fined for packaging its eggs as free range and a South
Australian egg seller was fined for putting cage eggs in free range
cartons.
Also in 2012 an inspection
processes in Victoria revealed that a farm was packing and selling
eggs from dubious sources interstate and labelling them as free range
eggs produced on that Victorian farm.
If all eggs are stamped
with a unique number which shows the farm on which they were laid,
egg substitution will hopefully become a thing of the past.
Consumers may still have
to contend with labels which can be misleading, with pictures of hens
frolicking on green pasture when the reality is far different. But a
recent Federal Court decision which resulted in a $300,000 fine for
a NSW egg farm which falsely labelled its eggs as free range, should
give consumers a little more certainty when they buy eggs.
Accreditation means
different things to different people. Consumers rightly expect it to
convey a message of credibility about a particular product, but to
many businesses it's simply a marketing tool designed to allow them
to make claims which increase their profits.
A logo can be a valuable
asset if it is trusted by consumers. But it's value is destroyed if
it is shown to be meaningless. Any accreditation program is only as
good as the willingness of the accreditation body to maintain its
standards and defend its logo.
Unfortunately there is no
free range certification standard in Australia which is worth the
paper it's written on.
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