KEY POINTS:
Food importers are continuing to flout labelling laws, despite a potentially fatal tea being discovered last month.
A Herald on Sunday investigation has found many products for sale without nutritional information or ingredient lists in English.
Green Party food safety spokeswoman Sue Kedgley accused authorities of "turning a
blind eye" to an issue that threatened public safety, but the New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA) said it took the matter seriously and policed the industry in several ways.
The law states all packaged food labels should carry a significant amount of information in English.
This should include the name of the food and the supplier, an ingredient list, directions for use and nutritional information.
Kedgley said non-labelled foods could be a danger if they contained potentially fatal allergens, such as nuts. They also made a mockery of the system because many manufacturers worked "extremely hard" to comply with the law.
She said: "What is the point of a label, and labelling laws, if they are just flouted? It undermines consumer confidence."
The Herald on Sunday visited several Auckland stores specialising in overseas food.
While most products had labels in English and a foreign language, some had just the product name in English with the rest of the information in Asian or eastern European languages, and some had no English at all.
The NZFSA confirmed consumers would have no idea what was in many products on our shelves.
But compliance and investigation director Geoff Allen denied that it was allowing importers, retailers and manufacturers to get away without properly labelling their foodstuffs.
He said the authority could not check every label in every store but policed the issue in three ways.
Staff carried out surveys "from time to time", followed up consumer complaints with public health units, and ran "targeted surveillance checks" to test ingredients matched what was on the label.
If there were problems, the manufacturer and retailer would be warned, and the product would be recalled if the breach meant a risk to public health.
A high-profile case in May involved Chinese herbal tea sold under brand names such as Heng Ming Canton Love Pea or Herba Abri.
The NZFSA warned that it contained poisonous seeds and seed pods.
Allen said his best advice for consumers was, "If you can't read the label, don't buy it". He said the authority had received 170 complaints about labelling in the past six months, but was unable to say how many were about foreign languages.
More specific figures would be available following an upgrade of its recording methods.
