Point of origin food labelling to be mandatory for QLD restaurants
Queensland eateries may soon be required by law to declare the origin of seafood on their menus, so customers know where their food has come from.
The Food (Labelling of Seafood) Amendment Bill, which will be debated soon in state parliament, will introduce mandatory labelling for all seafood sold in the hospitality sector and is designed to increase consumer awareness about the origin of their food.
If the law is passed it would give recognition to Queensland fishery operators.
"We're regulated so much in Australian fishing and that comes back through our quality," Mackerel business owner David Wren said.
"I couldn't imagine a commercial fisherman who wouldn't want this bill.
"When we go out to dinner, we always ask if [they serve] local seafood, and the answer always comes back that it is local but you can tell that it's not."
Some restaurant owners in Queensland have been labelling the food origins for a while and are not sure why it is a problem.
"We already have where the fish comes from on our menu and people really appreciate that," said Hanish Monga, venue manager of the Karumba Sunset Tavern.
"Customers want to have local and freshly caught seafood so that's why [we] have on the menu what is local fish."
Shawn McAtamney, a Cairns-based seafood wholesaler, retailer and exporter says the labelling legislation should have happened sooner.
"There's a lot of proponents that will say 'the cost of doing it is too costly in the food service sector. Who is going to police it?' [I've] heard it for 20 years, it's nonsense. It's got to stop," Mr McAtamney said.
"There is a lot of Australian seafood by name grown off-shore, and in particular for a wild caught there's a range of products that certainly suit price point and gross profit at dinner tables that the food service sector is living off at the expense of the wild caught sector."
Irit Jackson, 7th March 2022
