The first company-branded label appears to be designed for international markets that use the metric system.
It has pictographs reminding not to consume while pregnant or while driving. It notes that the bottle contains twenty-three 30mL servings, each of which contains 9.5 grams of pure alcohol, and that each serving represents either 276 kJ of energy or 67 calories. It also turns that into a standardised per 100mL measure: 222 calories if you poured out a strong measure.
Below that, it has another sticker. You’ll find that sticker on a lot of alcoholic products from overseas – and similar stickers on other food items too.
That second sticker says who the importer is, reminds that the product is not for minors, adds the additional NZ-standard version of the warning about not drinking while pregnant, and adds an additional standard drinks indication.
A New Zealand standard drink contains 10 grams of alcohol. So, the international label saying that the bottle contains 23 pours of 9.5 grams of alcohol isn’t quite good enough on its own. Converted to New Zealand standard, it’s about 22 standard drinks. Don’t you feel better informed?
The second label does not really add anything useful. But most of what’s on it is required by New Zealand law.
Food sold in New Zealand must meet labelling standards set jointly by Australian states and New Zealand through FSANZ – Food Standards Australia New Zealand.
Companies wanting to sell into the New Zealand market then have two basic choices, and neither of them are very good.
They can set their product labelling to comply with Australian and New Zealand standards. It sounds simple but think about what it means. The company must set a production run with bespoke labelling for the local market. That shorter run necessarily increases costs all on its own.
It also increases cost more indirectly.
If local demand for a product is lower than the company expected, they can’t easily send it to markets where the product is in short supply. It’s labelled for a bespoke small market. It would have to be relabelled for someone else.
If the company underestimates demand, it cannot divert product over to our part of the world from elsewhere – or at least not easily. It would not have compliant labelling.
And niche products are unlikely to warrant a separate production run just for our part of the world.
That brings the second option: manually adding little stickers to every single item sold here. There’s one on the can of Dr Pepper that I bought this morning from a small shop near the office. While the American can already had both imperial and metric labelling, it did not provide the ‘per 100mL’ figures that the New Zealand government requires. And where the can says it contains 150 calories, the sticker provides a measure in kilojoules.
I asked the shopkeeper whether he added those stickers himself or whether the importer provided them. He told me the cans came that way and that he would never be bothered to add stickers otherwise.
Again, stickers might sound simple. But think about what it means. Someone must open every pallet of product, every case, and every carton. Every can gets its sticker. Then it gets repackaged to be shipped off to retailers across the country.
New Zealand’s regulators regularly take the view that being allowed to provide goods and services to people here is an immense privilege and that companies should be prepared to bear substantial costs for that privilege. But these kinds of labelling requirements add approximately zero value for most consumers. The cost of meeting the requirements turns into higher prices for everyone on grocery store shelves.
The problem has even come up in discussions of the overall competitiveness of the grocery sector. Last year, the government worried that New Zealand’s bespoke labelling requirements made it even harder for a new supermarket operator to enter the local market. If the new entrant’s advantage would be its supply of products that are not otherwise sold here, that advantage is eroded if every product needs either a bespoke production run, or a sticker manually added to every single item.
On the Ministry for Regulation’s first-cut analysis, recognising comparable overseas labelling would provide about $166 million in net present value over the first decade, focused on benefits to potential new grocery entrants.
The government was considering a rather sensible alternative. Rather than requiring everything on the shelf be labelled to a small market’s standards, retailers could provide a QR code beside every item. The QR code would lead shoppers to a product description that met the FSANZ requirements. Unfortunately, the promised trial does not seem to have started yet.
The problem, and the potential solution, seemed clear. Stop requiring bespoke labelling that adds little value while inflating costs on store shelves. Start allowing safe products from overseas and supplement the packaging information with a QR code if it’s considered helpful.
One helpful way of thinking about it: if you wouldn’t need a local’s assistance when doing your shopping when overseas, that country’s labelling is almost certainly good enough for here too. Or close enough that it is not worth the cost of requiring labelling to FSANZ standards.
It’s also worth thinking about it from the other direction. New Zealand also exports food products. If a local manufacturer sells most of its products in, say, Canada, why not let them sell Canadian-labelled products here to help keep costs down – if they wanted to?
And that brings us back to alcohol.
Yesterday, the Post reported on FSANZ requirements to provide calorie counts on alcoholic products from 2028 onward. My bottle of Black Label already has that count, but it is not compulsory.
As best I can tell, or rather as best GPT 5.6 can tell me, very few places require calorie counts on alcohol containers. Israel and Chile currently require it, Ireland will require it from September 2028, and EU countries require it for wine but not for other products.
Energy labelling requirements otherwise are rare, unless you want to start tallying rules in Algeria and Bosnia.
You might think that the rules simply aim to provide better information, but that is not quite correct. The rules prohibit companies from providing true nutritional information about, for example, the Vitamin B6 content of beer. If Garage Project’s Cereal Milk Stout really were part of a nutritionally complete breakfast, the brewer would not be allowed to tell you on the label.
The Ministry for Regulation is still progressing work aimed at simplifying product labelling rules. Meanwhile, New Zealand’s regulators keep pushing for labelling rules that do little other than add compliance costs.
It does make me glad I keep that bottle of Black Label to hand.
Dr Eric Crampton is Chief Economist at the New Zealand Initiative. This article was sourced HERE
Below that, it has another sticker. You’ll find that sticker on a lot of alcoholic products from overseas – and similar stickers on other food items too.
That second sticker says who the importer is, reminds that the product is not for minors, adds the additional NZ-standard version of the warning about not drinking while pregnant, and adds an additional standard drinks indication.
A New Zealand standard drink contains 10 grams of alcohol. So, the international label saying that the bottle contains 23 pours of 9.5 grams of alcohol isn’t quite good enough on its own. Converted to New Zealand standard, it’s about 22 standard drinks. Don’t you feel better informed?
The second label does not really add anything useful. But most of what’s on it is required by New Zealand law.
Food sold in New Zealand must meet labelling standards set jointly by Australian states and New Zealand through FSANZ – Food Standards Australia New Zealand.
Companies wanting to sell into the New Zealand market then have two basic choices, and neither of them are very good.
They can set their product labelling to comply with Australian and New Zealand standards. It sounds simple but think about what it means. The company must set a production run with bespoke labelling for the local market. That shorter run necessarily increases costs all on its own.
It also increases cost more indirectly.
If local demand for a product is lower than the company expected, they can’t easily send it to markets where the product is in short supply. It’s labelled for a bespoke small market. It would have to be relabelled for someone else.
If the company underestimates demand, it cannot divert product over to our part of the world from elsewhere – or at least not easily. It would not have compliant labelling.
And niche products are unlikely to warrant a separate production run just for our part of the world.
That brings the second option: manually adding little stickers to every single item sold here. There’s one on the can of Dr Pepper that I bought this morning from a small shop near the office. While the American can already had both imperial and metric labelling, it did not provide the ‘per 100mL’ figures that the New Zealand government requires. And where the can says it contains 150 calories, the sticker provides a measure in kilojoules.
I asked the shopkeeper whether he added those stickers himself or whether the importer provided them. He told me the cans came that way and that he would never be bothered to add stickers otherwise.
Again, stickers might sound simple. But think about what it means. Someone must open every pallet of product, every case, and every carton. Every can gets its sticker. Then it gets repackaged to be shipped off to retailers across the country.
New Zealand’s regulators regularly take the view that being allowed to provide goods and services to people here is an immense privilege and that companies should be prepared to bear substantial costs for that privilege. But these kinds of labelling requirements add approximately zero value for most consumers. The cost of meeting the requirements turns into higher prices for everyone on grocery store shelves.
The problem has even come up in discussions of the overall competitiveness of the grocery sector. Last year, the government worried that New Zealand’s bespoke labelling requirements made it even harder for a new supermarket operator to enter the local market. If the new entrant’s advantage would be its supply of products that are not otherwise sold here, that advantage is eroded if every product needs either a bespoke production run, or a sticker manually added to every single item.
On the Ministry for Regulation’s first-cut analysis, recognising comparable overseas labelling would provide about $166 million in net present value over the first decade, focused on benefits to potential new grocery entrants.
The government was considering a rather sensible alternative. Rather than requiring everything on the shelf be labelled to a small market’s standards, retailers could provide a QR code beside every item. The QR code would lead shoppers to a product description that met the FSANZ requirements. Unfortunately, the promised trial does not seem to have started yet.
The problem, and the potential solution, seemed clear. Stop requiring bespoke labelling that adds little value while inflating costs on store shelves. Start allowing safe products from overseas and supplement the packaging information with a QR code if it’s considered helpful.
One helpful way of thinking about it: if you wouldn’t need a local’s assistance when doing your shopping when overseas, that country’s labelling is almost certainly good enough for here too. Or close enough that it is not worth the cost of requiring labelling to FSANZ standards.
It’s also worth thinking about it from the other direction. New Zealand also exports food products. If a local manufacturer sells most of its products in, say, Canada, why not let them sell Canadian-labelled products here to help keep costs down – if they wanted to?
And that brings us back to alcohol.
Yesterday, the Post reported on FSANZ requirements to provide calorie counts on alcoholic products from 2028 onward. My bottle of Black Label already has that count, but it is not compulsory.
As best I can tell, or rather as best GPT 5.6 can tell me, very few places require calorie counts on alcohol containers. Israel and Chile currently require it, Ireland will require it from September 2028, and EU countries require it for wine but not for other products.
Energy labelling requirements otherwise are rare, unless you want to start tallying rules in Algeria and Bosnia.
You might think that the rules simply aim to provide better information, but that is not quite correct. The rules prohibit companies from providing true nutritional information about, for example, the Vitamin B6 content of beer. If Garage Project’s Cereal Milk Stout really were part of a nutritionally complete breakfast, the brewer would not be allowed to tell you on the label.
The Ministry for Regulation is still progressing work aimed at simplifying product labelling rules. Meanwhile, New Zealand’s regulators keep pushing for labelling rules that do little other than add compliance costs.
It does make me glad I keep that bottle of Black Label to hand.
Dr Eric Crampton is Chief Economist at the New Zealand Initiative. This article was sourced HERE
1 comment:
'We have reached a time when intelligent people are being silenced so that stupid people won't be offended.' Which pretty much sums up the labelling - stupid people is why they have 'serving suggestion' on a can of baked beans etc.....
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