Organic sausages grilled by Choice

Consumer advocate Choice is calling on greater surveillance of organic food after an investigation found high amounts of preservatives in organic sausages.

Of the sausages tested, the study found organic ones had the second highest levels of sulphur dioxide, a product forbidden in organic food.

The Organic Federation says it's an isolated incident and the supplier should immediately remove the product from the marketplace.

Choice only tested one type of organic sausages for the study, but spokesperson Tom Godfrey says there needs to be more investigation into other organic claims.

"It is potentially a once-off, but we know that the term organic is used widely across a range of food products.

"Greater work needs to be done by regulators to ensure that [when] that organic term which carried a very high premium [is used], you're actually getting what you paid for."

Spokesman for the Organic Federation of Australia, Tim Marshall, says both the supplier, Green Cow Organics, and the certifier, Organic Food Chain, are at fault.

"This is a good cause for the certifier to have a very good look at both the manufacturer and their own systems," he said.

Mr Marshall says suppliers had to go through a stringent certification process and it is likely to be an isolated incident.

"It's not usual to find serious mistakes or frauds in organic products," he said.

"There is enough surveillance that goes on in the certification systems that most people who want to cheat would say 'there's a likelihood that I would get caught here'."

The company that made sausages, Green Cow Organics, admits that a mistake was made in the labelling of its product. The owner of the company, Allan Dwyer, says the sulphur dioxide was in the meal that was combined with the meat to make the sausage. Mr Dwyer insists that all the meat in his sausages is organic.

"All the meat is certified organic, but the rice meal hadn’t been given the guarantee that it was 100 per cent organic," he said.

"Anything that is not certified organic should not have that logo on it and [Choice] are right."

Mr Dwyer says the labels on the product were removed as soon as the mistake was identified.

The organic certifier, Organic Food Chain, has been unavailable to comment.

Source: ABC Rural News, 19 July 2013