Pestering parents
BURGER giant McDonald’s has been criticised for targeting children in television advertisements. The fast food retailer last month was awarded the Pester Power Award in the inaugural Parents Jury Advertising Awards for the best and worst children’s food advertising. Macca’s copped the gong because of the heavy promotion of children’s toys in its Happy Meals, the Jury said. The Parents Jury said the ploy was a marketing tactic that was “well known to encourage children to pester their parents to buy the product for the toy”. The Parents Jury is a network of more than 400 parents from around Australia who nominated and voted on television advertisements for food products aimed at children.
Hands-on first
The City of Melbourne has created an Australian first with the introduction of a nationally accredited Food Safety for Food Handlers Online Course. Melbourne Lord Mayor John So said the accredited online training course would allow people previously unable to access classroom training to undertake education in food safety practices and procedures. “The City of Melbourne boasts around 2,600 food businesses and at last count there was a staggering 83,100 cafe and restaurant seats,” Soo said. The Food Safety for Food Handlers Online Course will certify participants as Food Safety Supervisors under the Victorian Food Act (1984), which requires every Victorian food business to have a Food Safety Supervisor. For more information contact the City of Melbourne Hotline on (03) 9658 9658 or visit melbourne.vic.gov.au/foodsafetytraining.
Big wine wins
Small and medium-sized wineries have failed to substantially trim their costs and improve their financial performances unlike their larger counterparts, according to the 2004 Annual Financial Benchmarking Survey released by research group Deloitte and the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia (WFA). The study examined the financial performance of wineries located across Australia for the 2004 financial year. According to Deloitte Partner and leader of the Deloitte Wine Industry Group Stephen Harvey wineries with greater than $20 million revenue and the large listed wine companies enjoyed a cost advantage over small and medium wineries in terms of grape cost, wine cost, overhead cost per litre and packaging costs. They were also better placed in terms of distribution. Chief executive officer of the WFA Stephen Strachan said the survey results were indicative of the difficult trading conditions. “Some wineries may be able to justify high costs if their sales revenue per case is sufficient to support these costs, however many wineries will need to re-examine their costs and their brand strategies in order to survive the difficult period ahead,” Strachan said.
Plants a priority
Local food businesses can be more confident of receiving top quality produce as part of a new scheme introduced by the NSW Food Authority. The Authority said it had spent the past year working to identify potential “high priority” food areas that needed special attention to help food businesses identify risks of food contamination. The scheme, which targets high-risk plant foods, is the first of its type in Australia and was developed after a comprehensive risk assessment that included extensive consultation with the industry, the Authority said. The Plant Products Scheme covers fresh cut fruit (usually consumed raw); fresh cut vegetables (usually consumed raw), vegetables in oil, unpasteurised juice and seed sprouts. The Scheme covers businesses involved in the production, storage and transport of the above products.
