Update from Vincent Arbuckle, DDG, NZFS

Kia ora koutou,

Welcome to the August edition of Food News.

I had the honour of opening the Tony Roach Memorial Plenary at this year’s joint Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, and Australasian College of Toxicology and Risk Assessment (SETAC-ACTRA) Conference. 2025 marked the first time the SETAC-ACTRA Conference was held in New Zealand.

The plenary featured Dr Peter Dawson (Environmental Protection Authority NZ), Dr Vittorio Fattori (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations) and Dr John Roche (Ministry for Primary Industries, Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor). New Zealand Food Safety (NZFS) also hosted Dr Fattori for a leadership discussion on global food safety trends. Their insights into chemical risk, food safety foresight, and science leadership were both timely and relevant.

NZFS contributed across the programme, with staff leading workshops, chairing sessions and presenting research on emerging contaminants.

The conference highlighted why science-led regulation and international collaboration is important. It affirmed our shared commitment to a safe and trusted food system for New Zealand and our global partners.

For Verifiers and Territorial Authorities, your on-the-ground role in applying standards is vital. The topics discussed, such as environmental inhibitors and low-dose chemical exposure—are increasingly relevant to your work in protecting public health and supporting trade.

Ngā mihi nui,

Vincent Arbuckle
Deputy Director-General, New Zealand Food Safety

Food Act Template Review Project

The updated Food Notice: Food Service and Food Retail Business Food Control Plan templates issued under section 39 2025 and Simply Safe and Suitable (SS&S) template food control plan is now available here. Businesses registered under SSS must start using the updated cards (if applicable) by 30 April 2026. The updated cards are:

• Checking the plan is working well;
• Managing self-supply water;
• Sourcing, receiving and storing food;
• Using water to control bugs;
• Using acid to control bugs;
• Hot smoking to control bugs;
• Making Chinese style roast duck; and
• Making biltong (new).

The specialist card for making biltong will allow businesses to manufacture biltong under the SS&S template Food Control Plan, rather than needing to register a custom Food Control Plan. The card includes controls around sourcing of meat, marination methods and water activity of the final product.

Details on what businesses must do and the new version of SSS are available here. You can read about why the changes were made, feedback on the changes, NZFS’ responses and the actual changes here.

Changes to Alcohol Labelling Requirements - Food Standards Australia New Zealand Proposals Approved

Proposal P1049 – Carbohydrate and Sugar Claims on Alcoholic Beverages

Nutrition content claims about ‘sugar’ are now formally permitted for alcoholic beverages that contain more than 1.15% alcohol by volume (ABV) if they meet the relevant conditions in Schedule 4 of the Code.

Standard 1.2.7 has always provided explicit permission for nutrition content claims about the carbohydrate content for alcoholic beverages that contain more than 1.15% ABV. Whether this permitted claims about ‘sugar’ was not clear. The permission provided under Standard 1.2.7 now explicitly allows nutrient content claims about ‘sugar’ and ‘carbohydrate’ content with prohibitions in place for claims about individual sugars (e.g., fructose) or other carbohydrate components (e.g. fibre).

Check out Attachment A in the Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) P1049 – Approval Report 7 April 2025 for the requirements around making nutrition content claims about carbohydrate content or sugar content for alcoholic beverages and the explicit prohibition on claims about individual sugars and carbohydrate components.

Proposal P1059 – Energy Labelling on Alcoholic Beverages

FSANZ have introduced mandatory energy (kilojoule) labelling for all packaged alcoholic beverages in a prescribed format known as the ‘energy statement’. From 13 August 2028, all packaged alcoholic beverages must display the mandatory energy statement on their labels except for those that:

• are exempt from the general requirements to bear a label, or
• are required to have a nutrition information panel (NIP) as per Standard 1.2.8 (non-standardised alcoholic beverages containing less than 0.5% ABV), or
• have a voluntary NIP in accordance with the new section 2.7.1—4E, (that includes the standard drinks per serve), or
• are a food for sale in a small package (less than 100 cm²).

The ‘energy statement’ must include energy content per serving, energy content per 100 mL, number of servings per package, the serving size and number of standard drinks per serving in the following prescribed format:

The change involves a three-year transition period with a stock-in-trade exemption. Alcoholic beverages labelled before 13 August 2028 can either abide by the existing requirements of the Code (no energy statement) or comply with the new energy labelling requirements. From 13 August 2028, all packaged alcoholic beverages must display the mandated energy statement on their labels.

Check out Attachment A in the FSANZ P1059 – Approval Report 7 April 2025 for details about the mandated energy statement, exemptions from having an energy statement and the prescribed form for an energy statement.

Both P1049 and P1059 were gazetted on 13 August 2025 with updates due shortly to the relevant parts of the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code.

If you have any questions, please contact us at foodactinfo@mpi.govt.nz.

Learning for Food Act Evaluators

The Shared Services Team in the Food Risk Management Directorate are improving the resources and learning activities for Food Act evaluators.

A survey will be used to gauge the level of support needed and to plan future improvements. Watch out for a summary report in the Food Safety Academy. This focussed work is anticipated to improve the resources specifically aimed for evaluators and clarify NZFS’ expectations.

Continuing Professional Development support from the Shared Services team

As we head towards the end of the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) year, the Shared Services team recently hosted two online sessions. These sessions provided Verifiers a walkthrough of the peer review process and answered questions they had.

A total of 247 Verifiers and CPD Managers attended across both sessions. A video of the walkthrough is available now on the Academy Peer Review 2024-2025 page.

To let the Shared Services team know your preferred dates and times for upcoming CPD Q&A sessions, please respond using the poll on the Academy homepage.

Visit the NZFS stand at Foodtech Packtech 2025

Come visit NZFS at the 2025 Foodtech Packtech, on 2-4 September at the Auckland Showgrounds.

You can talk to our team at our stand (BGH12) or listen to our presentations at the show:

• Tuesday 2 September at 11.00am: “Exporting - Are you ready to take your food or fibre business global?”
• Wednesday 3 September at 2.00pm: “An overview on the regulatory oversight of new food sources and production systems ”

You can also catch our presentations as part of the New Zealand Institute of Food Science and Technology Inc (NZIFST) Seminar Series, dates and times can be found here.