Dairy industry welcomes star label scrutiny

The Dairy Industry Council says more investigation is needed to ensure that dairy products aren't presented as unhealthy, under a new nutrition labelling system.

And it's welcomed a commitment that that work will be done over the next six months.

Australian and New Zealand health and agriculture ministers have signed off on new star-rating labels for packaged food, which are designed to make it easy for consumers to choose healthy products.

While that's been enthusiastically welcomed by health and consumer advocate groups, industry representatives have been more circumspect.

The dairy industry is worried that the algorithm used to decide which products get high star ratings treats dairy products unfairly, and gives low star ratings to foods like cheese and milk, even though they are recommended as part of a healthy diet.

The chairman of the Australian Dairy Industry Council, Noel Campbell, says it's good news that policy makers will take another look at that detail.

"We believe that some of the issues around fat, sugar etc didn't fairly represent dairy. Cheese in particular sometimes got a low star rating.

"Clearly some food groups aren't well represented on this star rating."

Mr Campbell says he believes it is possible to fairly represent dairy products using a star rating system, as long as more work is done to address the current issues.

Source: ABC News, 17 June 2013