With the intent of sharing prudent words of caution regarding the harmful effects of alcohol, especially among pregnant women, a Trans-Tasman Ministerial Council on food regulation has recently made a decision of making it mandatory for alcohol manufacturers to label their products.

In this regard, New Zealand and Australian ministers having the duties of regulating food and beverages recently had a meeting for the sake of considering their reaction to the suggestions in the Food Labelling Review.

However, it has been reported that alcohol manufacturers will be given a period of two years, during which they can voluntary place labels on their products and after the completion of two years, placing labels on alcohol products will be made mandatory regulation.

However, Katherine Rich, of the Food and Grocery Council, has claimed that there are a few speculations that labelling can influence the preferences of the most susceptible women of the nation.

In addition, there are expectations that shoppers will soon be given nutrition labels pasted on food and drink products in Australia and New Zealand. Also, the Legislative and Governance Forum on Food Regulation, which is functional in both the nations, has expressed its consent on the need of a worldwide front-of-package labelling system.

As a result, the forum is keenly focused on developing such sort of a system by the year ahead.

Recently, a substitute traffic-light labelling system was discarded. The system was proposed for denoting nutritional information of food items using green, red or amber depictions.

The forum is of the view alcohol products should be carrying labels, just like cigarette cartons do, so as to make pregnant women aware regarding its harmful consequences. While expressing her opinion in this regard, Katherine Rich, the Chief Executive of Food and Grocery Council claims that before introducing any kind of fresh labelling system, it is highly important that the structure of the proposed system is thought through properly.