news, local-news

A BALLARAT artisan baker has joined the debate for clearer food labelling after revelations a major supermarket’s bakery products could be up to six months old. Last week, Fairfax Media revealed that Coles was selling bread and pastry products that had been snap frozen for six months and labelling them as ‘freshly baked’. Many of the products were also imported, but Coles has hit back at its critics, maintaining the freezing is only for a small proportion of products. Last week, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission began legal proceedings against Coles for claiming that their bread and bakery products had been “freshly baked in-store” when they had been made months earlier in European countries such as Denmark, Germany and Ireland. Owner and Operator of Basilio Sourdough, Giorgio Basilio said that ‘freshly baked’ was not a definitive term and supermarkets were prone to take advantage of unspecific terminology. “Its a play on words and supermarkets take advantage of that,” Mr Basilio said. “They try to sell cheap and importing may be the only way they can do it.” The baker said that people buy bread from supermarkets because it is convenient. “Until there’s no people buying it, they will keep selling the imported product.” Mr Basilio has joined a national call for food labelling that identifies ingredients and country of origin. Spokeswoman Anna Kelly said only a small portion of bakery products in Coles stores in Ballarat were imported. “Over 99 per cent of the bread we sell at our Coles stores in Ballarat is Australian, and 100 per cent of our Coles brand bread is made locally,” she said. “We will only source internationally when the customer demand cannot be met by the local industry.” david.jeans@fairfaxmedia.com.au

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