Bakers oppose 'softened' folic-acid additive plan

Annette King

The plan to force bread makers to dose loaves with a synthetic vitamin to reduce birth defects has been softened in a bid to satisfy bakers and widen consumer choice.

But bakers still oppose the "mass-medication" scheme - even though the changes may allow some breads to escape the mandatory addition of folic acid - and want it scrapped.

Food Standards Australia New Zealand is nearing the final stages of several years of assessment of the plan for mandatory fortification of bread with folic acid to reduce the incidence of neural tube birth defects including spina bifida.

If FSANZ adopts the plan it could go before transtasman food ministers in October and be enforced late next year.

The plan up to mid-August was to require folic acid to be added to bread-making flour, which milling and baking groups say is effectively all flour used in commercial baking or sold to consumers.

Now the plan is to add it instead to "bread products" through folic acid mixes or bread improvers rather than to the flour.

Addressing a Baking Industry Association conference, Food Safety Minister Annette King outlined the changes made after she and agency officials were "convinced" by the industry that adding folic acid to all bread-making flour was not suitable.

"It would limit consumer choice," she said, "and mean adding folic acid to a wider range of flour-based products, which could, in turn, lead to some people consuming more folic acid than desirable.

"Millers would also face extensive extra costs adding folic acid to the flour at the mill.

"[The revised plan] may also mean some bread products can remain unfortified, thus providing for consumer choice and addressing some concerns around increased intakes of folic acid."

Association executive director Mike Meaclem said of mandatory folic acid fortification: "It's a crock of nonsense. We strongly disapprove of any mandatory mass medication."

He said association members, mainly small "artisan" bakers, did not have the scales required to weigh the tiny quantities of folic acid that would be required and many did not use bread improvers.

"[The FSANZ] target market is females aged 16 to 25. That is a market that we struggle to sell bread to, let alone enough of it to help them with this issue."

Voluntary fortification with folic acid has been permitted since 1996 and it is added to some breads, breakfast cereals and other products.

It is also present in its natural form in green leafy vegetables, but women considering becoming pregnant are urged to take folic acid supplements as they consume only half the recommended quantity.


BREAD ADDITIVE

* Food Standards Australia New Zealand is considering forcing addition of folic acid to bread from next year.

* The Ministry of Health says folic acid supplements taken around the time of becoming pregnant can reduce the incidence of neural tube birth defects, including spina bifida.

* Up to 75 pregnancies a year in NZ are affected by these defects.

* FSANZ expects four to 14 fewer NZ cases a year under its proposal to boost folic acid intake by women of child-bearing age by 131 micrograms per day.

* Opponents say a major risk is that a high folic acid level may mask a deficiency of vitamin B12, which can cause numb limbs and memory loss.

* FSANZ says its proposed level of fortification poses no health risk and that folic acid supplements would still be needed.

* Addition would increase bread price by less than 1 per cent.