All perishable foods still not coded

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33883, 1 July 1975, Page 14

All perishable foods still not coded

Altheugh it is more than two years since regulations were introduced requiring manufacturers of perishable foods to indicate the age of foodstuffs by marking packaging dates on them, some manufacturers are still not complying.

The offenders are mainly meat manufacturers; dairy manufacturers are complying very widely now. The meats affected are corned, cured, pickled, and salted meat, including ham and bacon, and jellied meat. Under the regulations they should have been stamped from January 1, 1974. Eight months grace was given manufacturers to allow purchase of machinery for date-stamping, processing of indelible inks, and absorbent printing materials.

In many cases in which codes exist they are unintelligible to the average housewife, and retailers themselves are even mystified by some.

One brand of perishable meats sold widely in supermarkets in the city is very easily interpreted — 17.6.

On one brand of yoghurt, 04.6 means the fourth day of the month.

On another brand of perishable dairy produce, 22F is mystifying (It means June 22, letters of the alphabet being substituted for months of the year). However, 30.17 is baffling.

There is a reason for the obscurity of the code in some cases, however, the general manger of Foodstuffs (Mr R. W. Thomas) said.

“I deal with many customers, and you would be surprised how impractical they can be. I might have a cheese with a date marking which is a week old, but which was delivered only that day.

“Some customers would call that old, but cheese matures with time and, what is more, delivery from Auckland takes a week.

"For the sake of practicality, it is good that the customer can not interpret some codes immediately.” Simple underestimation of the durability of some products might lead to more waste, and absorption of the cost by companies who were already fighting high costa, he added. Another retailer said that the cedes were for the benefit of the retailer foremost. They gave him an idea

of the age of the Steck before it was mounted on display.

Secondly, they were for the customer’s benefit. Where codes were not obvious, customers had only to ask.

However, Mr Thomas said the codes were not directed at the retailer, or the customer, but at the Department of Health, which administered the regulations. Asked possible reasons for the two-year delay of some meat manufacturers in beginning date coding, Mr Thomas said two years was not long for companies who were struggling to find money to buy required machinery, and who could not afford greater costs of employing manual labour to do the job. Some machinery also took a long time to arrive after He was not able to estimate the numbers complying, and was not able to say if these even comprised most of meat manufacturers ch£n lying the Foodstuffs

A retailer of one foodstore said that he could think of a dairy perishable that was not date-coded now, except for yeast, which tended to lose its properties after a time, even when foilwrapped and in cool storage.