ANZ Focus: South Australia food export strategy, New Zealand labelling rules, Dumpling 100 kids' range and more feature in our round-up

Hot targets: South Australia food export strategy to focus on seven major APAC markets over next five years​

South Australia’s Food and Beverage Five Year Export Strategy will focus on 10 priority markets over the next five years till 2027, with seven of these centred within the Asia Pacific region.

Australia has traditionally placed a lot of focus on its fresh agricultural produce when it comes to exports, in line with the efforts the government has put into its Brand Australia branding, which is aligned with freshness and quality particularly when it comes to food products.

The state of South Australia has decided to expand on this to also pump resources into the value-added foods and beverages category over the next five years until 2027, as evidenced by the recently-announced South Australia Food and Beverage Five Year Export Strategy.

Welcome move: New Zealand health ministry plans to regulate supplements via self-assessment​

New Zealand’s Ministry of Health is intending to regulate natural health products via a self-assessment / declaration process, a move welcomed by the local industry body.

The ministry has been working on drafting the Therapeutic Products Bill and recently announced the planned market authorisation process for therapeutic products.

There are five different processes drafted, of which, natural health products have been categorised under the self-assessment / declaration process.

According to the announcement, the process is “an ongoing ‘automatic assessment of information and authorisation carried out by a system” ​and is applicable to natural health products, lowest-risk medical devices, and sunscreen.

Colourful cooking for kids: Dumpling 100 aims to fulfil visual and nutritional appeal with MSG-free range​

Australian dumpling specialist firm Dumpling 100 has launched a multicoloured, MSG-free children’s range, through which it aims to capture kids’ attention at mealtimes, as well as appealing to parents via its ingredients list.

Dumpling100 is best-known for its award-winning traditional Asian-style dumplings in Australia, having successfully launched its range in multiple national and local supermarket ranges across the country. But with its latest children’s range of products, the firm has opted to go for a more modern recipe to ensure it could cater to more children’s tastebuds.

“One important thing was definitely we wanted to ensure the kids would want to eat the dumplings and not put up a fight during mealtimes as is so common in many households, so for the dumpling wrappers we made these colourful in red, green and yellow to make these attractive to them,” ​Dumpling 100 Managing Director Shelly Zhou told FoodNavigator-Asia​.

‘Transforming recycling’: New Zealand food sector pushes for clearer on-pack labelling​

The New Zealand food and grocery sector says that clearer on-pack labelling denoting packaging recyclability is crucial if the government’s latest eco initiatives are to succeed.

New Zealand’s recycling culture is considered advanced compared with most markets within the Asia Pacific region, and has quite a few ongoing recycling schemes in the country – but these are not standardised and have been described by many in and out of the food and beverage industry as more confusing than efficient.

Earlier this year, the New Zealand Ministry of Environment (MOE) announced a plan dubbed ‘Transforming Recycling’, a document comprising three different initiatives: A container return scheme where consumers are incentivised to return beverage containers to be recycled/reused in exchange for a refundable deposit; Improvement of kerbside recycling which would standardise collection and processes for all local councils; and Business food waste separation which would mandate businesses to separate food waste from other waste.

'Meat is not the enemy': Why the plant-based sector might not be the future of protein – Growth Asia Summit​

One of Australia’s leading nutrition experts and senior CEOs will be making the case for meat at our forthcoming Growth Asia Summit, in the wake of an explosion of interest in the plant-based protein sector.

Nathan Cheong, CEO at Melrose Health, will take the stage to challenge the notion that ‘meat is the enemy’ at the three day event, which will take place at the iconic Marina Bay Sands venue in Singapore from 11-13 October.