Date-marked bread leads to confusion

Press, 6 March 1985, Page 28

Date-marked bread leads to confusion

The fears of a leading New Zealand bakery are justified that recent legislation for date marking bread would be confusing, says the bakery’s marketing manager. “Loaves of bread side by side in a shop are marked for example ‘best before March 6’ and ‘packed on March 3.’ The public is likely only to register the date which* might in fact be misleading as to the fresher loaf of bread,” said Mr John Lambourne of Quality Bakers, of Palmerston North. Regulations requiring all wrapped loaves that be marked with either “packed on,” “best before” or “use by” dating codes came into force on January 1. Mr Lambourne said then that the lack of standardisation would lead to confusion and anomalies. His prophecy had come true, he said. “Unless a standard system is introduced the date marking is meaningless and of no value to the consumer,” he said. Quality Bakers believed the code “packed on” was the only one which would positively identify the age of the bread and consequently was the only one which should be used.

However, because its competitors used the “best before” code Quality Bakers has to follow suit, and while there was confusion between the different uses of

the regulations, there were bakeries which ignored the rules altogether and had no date marking at all, said Mr Lambourne. “The regulations are not even being policed,” Mr Lambourne said. Mr Lambourne said he had sought a meeting with

the Minister of Consumer Affairs, Mrs Shields, and has written to the Committee for Food Standards to seek an amendment to the legislation. “The prime requirement of the regulations is to protect and inform the consumer as to the suitable freshness of the product for consumption. We are firmly of the opinion that the present regulations do not satisfactorily perform that task,” he said.