Country of Origin petition to be presented on Thursday

Green Party MP Sue Kedgley will be presenting a 39,000 signature petition calling for mandatory country of origin labelling on all fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, fish and single component foods at 1pm this Thursday in the West Foyer in Parliament.

Representatives of some of the organisations supporting the petition - Pork Industry Board, Horticulture New Zealand, New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association, Consumers Institute of New Zealand, the CTU - will also speak briefly at the presentation.

Ms Kedgley will also be releasing the results of a Green Party shopping survey to ascertain how many stores undertake voluntary country of origin labelling, and will have a supermarket trolley full of unlabelled examples.

“The petition has wide support from producer groups, consumer groups, unions, sector groups as well as ordinary New Zealanders. The government would be foolish to ignore the huge support for mandatory country of origin labelling of fresh food.

“I hope the petition will get a good hearing at the Commerce Committee, and that the government will recognise that it cannot continue to oppose the democratic right of consumers to know where their food comes from. It’s time New Zealand caught up with most of the rest of the world on this one.”