SABRA LANE, PRESENTER: The frozen berries hepatitis A scare has thrown the issue of food labelling laws into the spotlight. But would better labelling standards have made a difference in this case?

Over the past five years there've been five different federal inquiries and examinations into food labelling.

The consumer group Choice says the current laws are woefully inadequate.

Choice's chief executive Alan Kirkland joined me a short time ago.

Alan Kirkland, thank you very much for talking to 7.30.

ALAN KIRKLAND, CEO, CHOICE: Good evening.

SABRA LANE: There are so far 13 confirmed cases involving four states. Do we know how widespread possibly this could be?

ALAN KIRKLAND: I think the fact that it's berries means it could be incredibly widespread. They're the sort of thing that people stick at the back of the freezer, feed their kids, for breakfast, for lunch. They're all the way through the juice and smoothie bars of Australia, so I think it's going to be really, really difficult to trace where these berries may be, where they've been used and who's in fact eaten them.

SABRA LANE: Did the authorities know?

ALAN KIRKLAND: No, they can't. There is no way they could possibly know. I mean, they can - they're really relying on a system of self-reporting, so people recognising they may have had that particular brand. If they're lucky, they might still have the packaging so they know. But in reality, we're highly dependent on people's memories to get any sort of accurate sense of how widespread this problem might be.

SABRA LANE: Should we know that?

ALAN KIRKLAND: I think it's hard to know. I mean, I think in reality it's impossible to track every food product and where it goes. What we need to be focusing on is how we reduce the risks of these products and products that might carry diseases like hep' A getting into the food supply in the first case.

SABRA LANE: Groups like yours say that this is an illustration as to why we should have better labelling laws. The berry products here, they were marked "Product in China" or "Product of Chile" or packed using imported product. Is that good enough? I mean, people have got an idea that the product certainly didn't come from Australia.

ALAN KIRKLAND: That's right, but in some cases they simply said that the ingredients were imported with no sense of origin. And what we're really seeing in response to this problem is that people are saying, "We actually want to know where the major ingredients in our foods come from." Because consumers use that as a bit of a proxy. People make their own decisions. They don't buy food from particular countries 'cause they think that's a way of managing the risk and they need a labelling system that will help them to make those decisions.

SABRA LANE: That kind of labelling though wouldn't have stopped this problem, would it?

ALAN KIRKLAND: No, it wouldn't, so there's not a direct link between food safety and country of origin labelling, but the reality is that for lots of consumers, that's the way that they make decisions about what they want to buy with an eye to what the potential risks are of food from particular countries.

SABRA LANE: The company involved has complied with the current laws for testing. Frozen berries are deemed a low-risk food and they're tested for things like chemical residue, that the packaging matches what sort of requirements we expect in Australia, but not for organisms that could be potentially dangerous to human health. So they've done the right thing here.

ALAN KIRKLAND: They have, absolutely. I mean - but, they should be much more rigorous in their testing all the way along the supply chain to be checking that the risk is absolutely minimal. You can't eliminate these risks, but there needs to be a very strong obligation on people who are importing foods into Australia to take every step that they can to minimise the risks of diseases like hep' A slipping through.

SABRA LANE: It's in their interests and currently it's - they've got a sell-safe product - it's unlawful for them to sell something that is dangerous to humans.

ALAN KIRKLAND: Absolutely. Once you're in the situation of a recall, you've got to pull the products back, you can't sell any more of it. So, there's a strong obligation on producers and particularly importers, but I think in this case probably they've taken their eye off the ball. There hasn't been a lot of attention around the risks to do with frozen berries before, but I think we're going to see a significant drop in the sales of frozen berries on the shelves in the months ahead and we're going to see consumers exercising a lot more caution in buying them in the future.

SABRA LANE: Is it the company taking their eye off the ball here or is it the fact that laws - if it's shown that these berries were contaminated and this was the problem, that the laws need changing - is that the question here?

ALAN KIRKLAND: I think it does highlight that we need to look at which foods are actually tested for microbial factors and for disease risk because clearly that's a bit of a hole in the current system. The current testing does focus on pesticides, but this has highlighted there is another significant type of risk when it comes to fruit and vegetables that are handled by people as part of the process.

SABRA LANE: So what possibly else could be at risk here?

ALAN KIRKLAND: Well, any other disease that can be carried in this way. And of course with hepatitis A, it's not a case that there's a live disease that's being carried. It's something that can be effectively revived when you eat something that's frozen and it passes into your bloodstream. We've now seen the flow-on risks to the blood supply, with Red Cross having to contact recent donors in the past week. So any other disease in that category could raise the same sort of risk associated with any food that is handled.

SABRA LANE: But companies usually do make sure that they're selling a safe product. It's not in their interests to scare consumers. They want consumers to keep coming pack.

ALAN KIRKLAND: Absolutely not. But I guess we've also seen a vigorous price war and prices driven down on a number of common foodstuffs. And particularly if you look at an ingredient like berries, 10 or 20 years ago, frozen berries weren't a common product on the shelves, but as we've seen consumer tastes change and people looking to have those products all year round, we've seen imported products enter the market and we've seen the importers and even the major supermarkets try to drive down prices and this is one of the consequences.

SABRA LANE: What else needs addressing here?

ALAN KIRKLAND: Well we would say the system of country of origin labelling, which is a mandatory system, is broken. Our research shows that, but you don't need to do surveys to show that. Any consumer you speak to will say, "I don't understand what the labels on their food mean," and I think now we're going to need to see action on that. It's been put in the political too-hard basket for way too long, but I don't think the Government's going to be able to resist the community pressure for change now.

SABRA LANE: OK. Alan Kirkland, thanks for talking to 7.30.

ALAN KIRKLAND: Thanks, Sabra.