Costing a one-year delay to the introduction of mandatory nutrition labelling (June 2002)

June 2002

Overall, a delay of one year to the introduction of mandatory nutrition labelling will have significant adverse impacts on health in the community.

Between 320 and 460 people will die from diet-related diseases, every year mandatory labelling is delayed.
The cost to the health system - expenditure from all sources - is in the range of $47 million to $67 million for every year mandatory labelling is delayed.
The value of life, as measured by health economists, will diminish by $341 million to $486 million for every year mandatory labelling is delayed - an immense personal cost.
This methodology has adopted several very conservative assumptions. It indicates the likely minimum costs of delaying mandatory nutrition labelling.
Diet-related risk factors account for about 25% of Australia and New Zealand' s burden of disease.
From the experience of the US, we expect a significant proportion of currently unlabelled food products to show some poor nutrition qualities when nutrition labelling is mandatory.
From the US experience, we expect mandatory labelling will result in a significant substitution away from least healthy food products, towards the most healthy food products.
In addition, delaying mandatory labelling will mean insufficient warning of allergens in food products, placing vulnerable consumers at unnecessary risk.
Other warnings and advisory statements will be more difficult for consumers to interpret.