Public Consultation: Improving commercial foods for infants and young children

Overview

During the first 2000 days, food and nutrition have crucial roles in a child's growth and development.

Consumption of commercial foods for infants and young children has increased in recent years and is becoming more common as parents and caregivers see these as convenient, economical and healthy options. With the increase in popularity, the commercial food market for infants and young children has also grown significantly.

The nutritional quality of most commercial foods for infants and young children does not support optimal growth and development for this age group. Many products have been found to be high in energy and sugars and do not provide adequate nutrients critical for early development such as iron. The texture of many infant foods does not support optimal developmental feeding behaviours, and labelling practices may be misleading and do not support parents and caregivers to make the best informed choices. 

The Food Regulation Standing Committee (FRSC) is seeking to improve the nutritional composition, labelling and texture of commercial foods for infants and young children through actions in the Food Regulation System to better align this population's diets with Australian and New Zealand infant and toddler dietary guidance. 

The issue of commercial foods for infants and young children is also being considered by the Foods for Early Childhood Reference Group of the Healthy Food Partnership. The goal of this work is to develop voluntary industry guidance to improve the labelling, packaging, serving size and flavour profile of commercial foods for infants and young children. The voluntary guidance will be finalised following this consultation process to ensure it supports complementary actions to any regulatory changes that may occur.

Why your views matter

Australia and New Zealand share a joint system for food labelling which is overseen by Food Ministers. Food Ministers are responsible for developing food regulation policy in the form of policy guidelines and to ensure stakeholder views are considered on appropriate policies. 

Stakeholder submissions to this consultation will be used by FRSC to identify a preferred policy option(s) to recommend to the Food Ministers’ Meeting on options to progress in improving nutritional composition, labelling and texture of commercial foods for infants and young children.

Your views are being sought on issues including:

• Evidence of the current issues with commercial foods for infants and young children.
• The objective of this work.
• Impacts and design of the proposed options.
• Additional options that may be considered.

Responding to the consultation: 

1. Download and read the Consultation Paper "Improving commercial foods for infants and young children" (available under the 'Related' section at the bottom of this page). 
2. Respond to the questions in the online survey - the questions in the survey match the questions in the Consultation Paper. A preview of the survey is available for download under the ‘Related’ section at the bottom of this page.
3. Please provide evidence or examples to support your comments where possible. Comments on technical issues should be based on scientific evidence and/or supported by research where appropriate. Where possible, please provide citations to published studies or other sources.
4. It is not necessary to provide a response to all questions. 
5. All submissions are subject to the Freedom of Information Act 1982 in Australia and the Official Information Act 1982 in New Zealand. If you consider that all or part of your submission should not be released, please make this clear when making your submission and indicate the grounds for withholding the information.