Local pork industry calls for Australian-made bacon labelling overhaul

Updated

Australian pork producers say their industry is being undermined by weak labelling laws that make it easy for foreign pig meat to be portrayed as home-grown.

Andrew Spencer, chief executive of Australian Pork Limited (APL), says fine print and vague language means customers find it difficult to make decisions.

"Labelling makes it really confusing for our consumers to even identify Australian-grown bacon," he told Landline.

"People don't understand when they're eating bacon there's a very large chance it has come from a pig grown on the other side of the world."

Every consumer has the right to know where their food is produced, how it was produced, where it was produced - before they actually purchase it. Queensland pork producer Andrew Jones

The industry is calling on the Federal Government to make tougher laws that more clearly identify the country of origin.

"Under the [current] laws bacon made from pork imported from Denmark can be labelled as made in Australia, and that's because there's a lot of value-add [that] happens here through the curing, the cooking, the slicing and the packaging," Mr Spencer said.

Queensland pork producer Andrew Jones agrees the laws need changing.

"The writing on some of the imported product is so small you can't read it," Mr Jones said.

"Every consumer has the right to know where their food is produced, how it was produced, where it was produced - before they actually purchase it."

Local producers promoting Australian pork-mark label

Australians on average eat 6.3 kilograms of bacon a year, but APL says consumers are unaware more than 75 per cent of bacon sold in Australia is made from imported product.

Local producers are attempting to stem the flood of cheap bacon imports by promoting APL's pink pork-mark label which guarantees a product is Australian.

Mr Spencer says half of consumers now recognise this branding.

"Some of the large smallgoods manufacturers still haven't taken up that pork-mark, perhaps because they sell a lot of products made of imported pork," he said

"That is one of our milestones for the future - to get the pork-mark on some of those bigger brands.

"But it does seem to be making a difference and I think it's helping consumers make choices to support Australian farmers."

Apart from labelling, many Australian pork producers believe the best response to cheap bacon imports is for the local product to go upmarket.

While they can not compete on price, Australian bacon producers argue they can outdo their overseas competitors on quality, in much the same way local coffee, olive oil and cheese producers have done.

Consequently, there has been a marked increase in the number of artisan smokehouses and traditional smallgoods companies in Australia.

Customers paying more for Australian bacon, say producers

Canberra smallgoods chef Peter Curry recently took home the award for traditional Australia's best artisan bacon in the annual Bacon Week awards for his kiln-smoked dry-cured Irish style bacon.

"Once you taste the difference between it and the regular run-of-the-mill bacon, [which is] made from imported frozen pork, I don't think there's any comparison," Mr Curry said.

This year's competition had more entries than any of the previous five years.

Mr Curry says despite the price of Pialligo Farms' bacon he sells a tonne a week.

"I'm all about sourcing locally and doing it the old traditional way without injecting or pumping and everything else," he said.

"I think this is the reason everyone complains about bacon, because it's not done the proper traditional way."

Victorian company Bertocchi Smallgoods won the award for Australia's best bacon available nationally for a new line it has developed for Coles.

"We saw it as an opportunity to sell a premium-quality bacon which we believe is lacking in the supermarkets today," Bertocchi's Frank Di Virgilio said.

Despite using Australian pork, which is 30 per cent more expensive than imported product, companies like Bertocchi and Pialligo are finding customers will pay more for bacon they know is Australian.

"Twenty-five to 30 per cent of the market will pay for it. If we can target and get that market I am very happy with that," Mr Curry said.

Mr Spencer says artisan smokehouses are showing Australian bacon tastes better.

"The meat hasn't been frozen, it hasn't travelled across the world," he said.

"It has all of those attributes of freshness that gives it a platform for once it's cooked, and it's going to taste a lot better than the imported offering.

"It's consistent with how we see the pork we grow in Australia of being very high quality. It's really suited to high-end food service or high-end restaurants."

Topics: pig-production, food-and-beverage, australia, qld

First posted