Beef labelling

From 31 August 2010 beef labelling requirements place obligations on retailers when beef is labelled for sale.

Summary of new rules

Detailed information has been sent directly to licensed sellers of beef via general circular 09/2010.

To summarise the changes:

AUS-MEAT’s Domestic Retail Beef Register has been prescribed for use.

• Age & dentition
  Standard retail descriptions based on the age and dentition of the animal at slaughter are detailed in the register. For example, if the animal has eight teeth at the time of slaughter, it must be labelled ‘economy’ for retail sale.
  
  Standard descriptions include:
  • beef, which may be further described - if accurate and able to be substantiated - as:
    • yearling
    • young
    • intermediate
    • mature
  • economy Economy beef must always be so described.
    
• Production or processing system claims
  Any claims relating to production or processing systems must be accurate and able to be substantiated.
• Prohibited descriptions
  Retailers may not use any prohibited descriptions such as ‘A grade’, ‘Prime’ or ‘Lot fed’, among others. If retailers use supplementary descriptions from the AUS-MEAT language such as ‘grain fed beef’ these must be accurate and able to be substantiated.

The requirements are brought in by the Food Amendment (Beef labelling) Act 2009, which amends the Food Act 2003.

Implementation

A 6-month implementation period gave retailers time to adopt the new provisions before February 2011.

During that time, no enforcement action for breaches of the new labelling requirements has been taken and the Authority has provided information to help businesses comply with the new rules.

An education campaign for beef consumers is now underway, with instore materials being sent free of charge to all butchers licensed by the Authority.

Consumer education resources

Materials have been developed in consultation with industry to help consumers understand the new labels as these appear more regularly in meat retail outlets.

The consumer materials consists of:

A stand-up pad for display on counter tops

A plastic card made of food-grade plastic, to attach to counter glass or be placed amongst beef products on display

A poster

All meat retail licensees and meat processors with consumer-facing outlets received sets of the above materials for their facilities in February 2011.

The materials are available free to all meat retailers. To order call the Helpline on 1300 552 486.