May 9, 2019 | Katherine Rich Comments
Getting food labelling right is critical to any food business. Consumers rely on it and sometimes it’s a matter of life and death. Food safety in New Zealand is assumed, but there are many countries where consumers don’t have the same faith, and for good reason....
Apr 29, 2019 | Katherine Rich Comments
Companies of all shapes and sizes will be waiting with interest on the outcome of a Government consultation on proposals to strengthen the law protecting consumers and business from anti-competitive behaviour. The proposals concern Section 36 of the Commerce Act,...
Apr 24, 2019 | Katherine Rich Comments
In a small country with a population the size of many cities around the world, New Zealand naturally has a small base of quality academic work suitable for publication. Not surprisingly, when it comes to the peer-review process in New Zealand, quite often...
Apr 3, 2019 | Katherine Rich Comments
Now that it’s happened, I doubt too many people disagree with the ban on plastic shopping bags. I think many understand that overuse of plastic is becoming a problem right through the environment, and particularly for marine life and the ramifications down that food...
Mar 19, 2019 | Katherine Rich Comments
I was hoping 2019 would be a year of constructive reports on issues around obesity and wellness so we could make further headway on them. But it was only mid-January when British medical journal The Lancet published a report calling for people to eat a mouthful of...
Feb 19, 2019 | Katherine Rich Comments
I’m picking a very interesting year ahead for the FMCG sector. There’s no doubt from a suppliers’ point of view that profitability will be the main focus, but issues such as labelling, packaging and obesity will continue to loom large, as they have done for quite a...
Nov 27, 2018 | Katherine Rich Comments
The management of supermarkets and consumer goods companies has taken on quite a change in recent times – and there’s more to come. After decades of grocers scurrying around filling boxes with shoppers’ orders, and decades more of them carrying plastic bags to the...
Nov 27, 2018 | Katherine Rich Comments
Workplace Wellness programmes are often thought to be the domain of only large corporates, and beyond the resources of smaller businesses, but this does not need to be the case. When I look around the members of the New Zealand Food & Grocery Council, I often see...
Sep 14, 2018 | Katherine Rich Comments
In the debate around how to tackle the complex issue of obesity, sugar continues to attract the most attention. For the most part, those railing against it believe taxes to be the single best solution. But with the Government saying it prefers to work with the food...
Aug 10, 2018 | Katherine Rich Comments
Chief among the benefits that companies get from belonging to the Food and Grocery Council is exclusive access to information, seminars and networking events. These cover anything from export, health & safety, and sales strategies, to retail data and insights,...
Aug 1, 2018 | Katherine Rich Comments
People often do and say silly things where alcohol is involved. I’m not meaning just those who may consume too much of it, rather those who try to make it as difficult as possible for reasonable New Zealanders who want to supply or purchase beer and wine from a...
Jul 10, 2018 | Katherine Rich Comments
Now they’re going too far. As if years of using erroneous figures as “evidence” to back calls for taxes on sugar in everyday foods and beverages wasn’t bad enough, anti-food campaigners are now turning to some of the things that bring a little joy to our lives –...
