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Have you ever looked at food packaging and wondered what the word “fresh” really means?
According to the Australian Macquarie Dictionary, the word fresh means: newly made or obtained etc, not canned or frozen, not preserved by pickling, salting drying, etc

So when you see Orange juice called “Australian Fresh” or Olives in oil called “Always fresh”, is this a subtle way of getting the word “fresh” onto the packaging by having the word in the company name but not in the products description?

The Australian Fresh Orange juice has a used by date of 4th September 2010 (Used by 02 SEP 10L L3 18:43 on packaging), as I purchased the juice last night, the 17th so allowing for the manufacturing and distribution cycle of perhaps 2 days, and assuming the product was delivered yesterday, is a 20 day old product still considered fresh?

Foods Standards Australia and New Zealand doesn’t have guidelines in regards to food labeling, this is handled by the various state bodies. In Victoria this covered by Human Services under their Food Safety and Regulatory Activities Unit.

Ultimately it comes down to what a court deems the health claim or term to be true, funny enough it comes down to the definition in the Macquarie Dictionary and what a lay person would consider to be true.

A lot of orange juice that is blended from local and imported oranges or even reconstituted juice uses aseptic juice.

So what is aseptic juice anyway, well when the oranges are originally squeezed the juice is heated to kill any bacteria and then kept in cool rooms for anywhere up to 2 years.

Does this sound fresh to you??? As soon as you heat or expose the juice to UV light or oxygen it starts to deteriorate and lose all the nutrients. So the end result is that all that vitamin C needs to be replenished by adding “Vitamin C”. With the “Australian Fresh” Orange juice, vitamin C is added.

Aseptic processing removes most of the nutrients found in orange juice, reduces the taste of the juice and changes its colour.
The other part of the equation is the bulk buying of oranges from local growers when the price is the most attractive and processing the juice for consumption throughout the year.
I’ve never seen on the packaging, oranges have been squeezed on the 8/8/10.

When you buy bread, it usually says “Baked on the xx/xx/xx. I would like to see on the packaging “Oranges squeezed on 10/08/10″

Imagine if you went to a baker and you asked “is the bread fresh” and they said “yes, it was baked 2 days ago” or if you went to a takeaway that had pasta in a bain marie and the response was it was cooked 2 days ago, would you accept this as being fresh?

The other process is “reconstitition” whereby the water is original removed by evaporation from the juice for transportation or storage purposes and reconstituted by adding water back to the concentrate. This process doesn’t sound like the juice would be very fresh?

Getting back to the “Always fresh” “Deli Style Kalamata Olives” would you consider a product that has vegetable oil, salt and preservatives a fresh product? Although “Always Fresh” doesn’t necessarily imply it is fresh, it does confuse consumers when trying to make a decision when looking at a multitude of products.

The government is exploring the possibility of making it mandatory that all fast food outlets include the amount of calories on their products.

With no immediate solution to Australia’s obesity problem, a range of measures need to be introduced. With Australia’s fast food consumption increasing by 109% from 1999 – 2009, there needs to be more education and information regarding what people are eating.

Even as we speak McDonalds are advertising their “Family Dinner Box”, but walk into McDonalds and try and get some nutritional info, mission impossible.

The City of Melbourne have taking leadership with regards to food vendors in Melbourne’s QV food court who can voluntarily adopt there Traffic light system of food labeling with Red, Amber and green denoting what is good, ok and to not so great.

The traffic light system was also introduced as part of the tender process for the new Royal Children’s Hospital.

By having these labeling panels or nutritional information available, people can make more informed decisions about what they consume.

Well the danger is blogging about The Special K 2 week challenge is it promotes awareness of there product, be it good or bad.

So I like the premise of the challenge but behind it lurks a large multi national who has shareholders, mmm, what do share holder like, seeing healthy people around the globe, eating nutritious food and exercising regularly or maybe buying more Special K products.

Well Kellogg’s mission statement says “To drive sustainable growth through the power of our people and brands by better serving the needs of our consumers, customers and communities”.

So are there any elements of being a socially responsible company with the ultimate goal being focused around improving the health of their customers rather than increasing sales sales or giving the market the type of products they want but don’t need or are marketing about why they need Special K products?

Well if the program didn’t involve buying there highly processed products, it would be awesome but guess what, part of their program involves buying their special breakfast bars and eating Special K.

So lets look at there breakfast suggestions, Special K every morning mixed in with fruit & yoghurt, toast and muffins.

Remember that this company has also made some nutritional claims about Coco Pops “now supports your child’s immunity”

Obesity and people’s health is becoming the new marketing frontier for food companies.
Products that bring weight management, that make you feel better, have more energy and help the digestive tract are going to be big movers on the supermarket shelves.

Numerous companies adding nutrients, bacteria and minerals to our highly processed foods in order to win the sale, with Omega 3 and anti oxidants topping the list.

Recently Kelleggs made some crazy nutritonal claims that “Now Helps Support Your Child’s IMMUNITY” right on the front of the cereal box with the added claims of 25% of the daily value of antioxidant vitamins A, C and E.

Together with Kellogg’s, Groupe Danone and Nestle are getting into the nutritional bandwagon with creating additives that make there products more nutritionally appealing.

Danone have Dannon Activia and DanActive Yoghurt are leading the charge with there Probiotics, the healthy bacteria that are found in your gastrointestinal tract. Once again there is limited research to support the benefits of probiotics and more importantly the different strains of probiotics.

It’s a shame that as a society, we are increasing becoming more reliant on the avalanche of processed foods that large food vendors are happy to produce to satisfy demand.

Ultimately clever marketing and development of new products will persuade unsuspecting consumers to make choices as to what they consume, be it food closer to it’s natural state or the processed variety from food companies.