Group aims to inform public

Press, 20 February 1986, Page 14

Group aims to inform public

New Zealand’s food technologists have formed an organisation to try to keep the public better informed about food. Foodwatch has been set up by the technologists’ professional body, the Institute of Food Science and Technology. The institute’s president, Mr Gary Stichbury, said Foodwatch was the technologists’ response to the growing complexity of food issues and the need for public access to objective information. Foodwatch would draw on the expertise of institute members to provide background information regularly, said Mr Stichbury. “A current example is that of food labelling where new regulations will shortly be introduced requiring each additive in food to be more precisely identified,” he said. “This is quite a complicated area of food technology where any proposed system needs to be explained In a way that people can clearly understand.”

One of Foodwatch’s first tasks will be to prepare a report on food labelling overseas and how this might apply to New Zealand. Other aims of the group include promoting food science and technology as a career, and showing the contribution made to the nation’s economy.