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Getting nutrition right
Keeping track of the nutrition profile and costs at the same time as developing a new product is important to be able to meet the health and life style needs of your target market, as well as leave you a with a healthy profit at the end of the day.The availability to Anny of tailor-made nutrition calculation software makes it easy to monitor the effects of any formulation change instantly. The software packages used have databases with composition details of over 25,000 foods, including hundreds of specialised food industry ingredients. Reformulation for nutrition targets such as those in the Heart Foundations "Pick the Tick" programme is quick as the software explains exactly how much and what % of a nutrient (e.g. saturated fat, sodium/salt) comes from which ingredient. The software can also track allergens and Glycaemic Index details and vitamin, mineral, amino acid and fatty acid profiles, which is of great help for sport foods and dietary supplement formulations.
Complying with Aus/NZ Food Standards
We will make sure that all legal requirements on composition, label claims and ingredient declarations (including additives, sub-ingredients and water) are met. We let our regular clients know if there are food regulation changes coming up that may affect them so they can anticipate the effects. We sort out your labelling requirements to comply with the FSANZ regulations to the last nitty gritty detail, especially on allergens, characterising percentages and GMO declarations. We can explain to you the procedures that need to be in place to confidently declare your product "GMO free". Then you do not need to worry about the risk of costly and embarrassing recalls, or having to understand over 500 pages of food legislation.
It is unfortunate but common to have to sort out errors in raw material information from suppliers, errors which Anny can spot with her experience of a wide range of food product labelling. Quite often these relate to undeclared allergens, and early detection can save you from a risky recall situation.
Cost of labelling advice
The cost for advice varies greatly depending on the accuracy and completeness of the information available, and the number of products using the same raw materials. Contact us by [ ] for an estimate for your particular situation.
Typically the range is from $250-$500 (+ GST) per label, which not only covers the Nutrition Information Panel (NIP), but also the ingredient and sub-ingredient declarations, allergens, characterising percentages, permitted label claims and all other general labelling requirements. Simple recipes, say for a fudge, would be at the low end or even less, whilst complicated formulations with lots of sub-recipe steps and maybe some moisture loss may be towards the higher end.
Note that laboratory testing at approx. $300 (no dietary fibre) - $600 (incl. dietary fibre) only gives you the composition, still leaving you to sort out the tricky ingredients listing and allergen declarations. Occasionally products do not lend themselves to calculations and we will incorporate the results of analytical tests into the overall label information we give you. We check the analytical results and at times have asked for retesting where results do not make sense, for instance when the result for sugars, which is part of carbohydrates, comes back as higher than the carbohydrate.
If you already have the labelling in place, but are now not so sure if it is correct and rather be "safe than sorry", we offer expert auditing services to give you piece of mind. You do not want to be in the situation of an importer last year who came to Anny in a panic, urgently needing to have incorrect labelling advice (given by an inexperienced nutritionist) corrected, in order to avoid a public recall. This again proved that using less experienced advisers than Anny or trying to do it yourself carries significant risk. Even copying competitors labelling formats is far from fail-safe as big companies get it wrong at times, as is proven by the many high profile recalls. You cannot afford not to use the best professional advice.
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Help for Importers
We have dealt with a wide range of imported foods, drinks and dietary supplements from a diverse range of countries that are imported into New Zealand and/or Australia. Anny has done well over 500 labels for clients, ranging from "Anchovies" to "Pickled zucchinis" (Full list) for New Zealand made and imported products. It is much more than just "translating" the information as the labelling requirements between countries are hugely different, and many products have unlisted allergens, unlisted and/or even illegal additives, unknown declarable subsidiary ingredients, GMO materials, added water, and so on.
We can convert the US % RDAs into the correct NZ/Aus % RDI as there are significant differences between them. Also nutrition information rules are different in for instance nil-declaration of low amounts and for rounding off. For exporters we have worked with the food legislation for a wide range of Asian countries and can also generate US style "Nutrition Facts" labels. For ‘real’ translations, Anny's knowledge of many languages (English, Dutch, German and some French) is an added bonus. Examples of labelling and nutrition calculation jobs undertaken by Anny Dentener
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