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The chemical residue and contaminant status of New Zealand foods

As the independent competent authority in New Zealand, NZFSA manages risks to food safety through regulation and provides official assurances on exports of animal products, including milk products and seafood.

This booklet is one of three companion booklets. This one explains how NZFSA checks that all our food does not exceed safe chemical residue and contaminant limits. The other two booklets explain how NZFSA ensures food exported to other countries is safe; and how NZFSA ensures food is safe for consumption in New Zealand. 

Introduction

Safe, nutritious and suitable food is a priority for any country, more so if that country relies on food exports for its economic well-being. In a world where globalisation of international trade is rapidly growing, and where food production technologies and consumption patterns are constantly changing, government assurances as to the safety and suitability of food are increasingly important.

The New Zealand public expects government to be involved in ensuring the food supply meets specified levels of safety. Before any food can be sold in New Zealand, it must comply with current New Zealand legislation and standards, and be ‘fit for purpose’, ie, suitable. These requirements apply to all food grown in New Zealand as well as imported food.

New Zealand exports about 80% of the food it produces. Food exports account for about 55% of New Zealand’s total exports, and in the year to December 2007 were worth NZ$19.7 billion to the economy. Horticultural exports grew from $115 million in 1980 to over $2.6 billion in 2007. Any food produced for export must first meet the New Zealand requirements and then those of the importing country unless a specific exemption is granted. Exporters and trading partner countries need to be assured that the food New Zealand produces continues to be safe and meets importing country criteria.

As an island nation New Zealand enjoys a natural barrier to animal and plant pest and diseases. Despite some diseases having been introduced by early European settlers in the 19th century, New Zealand is free from the major animal and zoonotic diseases that affect other parts of the world, such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), foot and mouth disease, and rinderpest.

Ensuring human and animal health

Our excellent animal and plant health status is vigorously protected by tight quarantine laws and border controls. Internal regulation of the use of animal feeds, medicines and agricultural compounds ensures they are used in a way that protects New Zealand consumers – and our trading partners.

Most countries, including New Zealand, have established maximum residue limits (MRLs) for agricultural compounds such as veterinary medicines and pesticides, which safeguard consumer health and also minimise the presence of these residues in food and the environment.

Any misuse of agricultural compounds or veterinary medicines has the potential to cause harm to consumers as well as cause serious problems for trade in primary produce, for animal welfare and for agricultural security.

Extensive residue monitoring and surveillance programmes, government control over the registration, distribution and use of agricultural chemicals, and the relatively low chemical input requirement of our farming systems, all go toward providing the necessary assurances to New Zealand consumers and importing countries as to the acceptable residue status of New Zealand animal and agricultural products.

The protector and promoter of food safety and public health in New Zealand is the New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA). NZFSA is responsible for administering legislation covering:

• food for sale in New Zealand, whether grown here
or imported

• processing of animal products and issuing of official assurances related to their export

• registration and use of agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines

• production of wine and issuing of official assurances related to its export.

Ensuring that the legislation we administer and the risk-based chemical residue monitoring programmes that come out of that legislation meet the needs of both New Zealand consumers and our trading partners is just one aspect of NZFSA’s role as the New Zealand food regulator. How we achieve this is explained in this publication – from the key legislation through to detailed descriptions of the relevant programmes.

Modern food regulatory programmes

All food, animal material and related products produced in New Zealand, whether for export or domestic consumption, must comply with requirements.

A food regulatory programme must ensure food safety and suitability. It must provide consistent and flexible regulatory oversight from producer through to consumer and ensure efficient use of resources while allowing for new or novel foods and food processing techniques.

Regulatory oversight of food safety must be broad enough to encompass all components of the food system ‘from farm to fork’. All countries maintain sanitary and phytosanitary measures, such as the regulated use of pesticides, to ensure that food is safe for consumers, and to prevent the spread of pests or diseases among animals and plants. A World Trade Organization agreement on how governments can apply food safety and animal and plant health measures sets out the basic rules for member countries. It allows countries to set their own standards but it also says regulations must be based on science. Our Government has to manage the risks that imported goods can pose to the safety of our food and our plants and animals. Trade and safety objectives are sometimes seen as conflicting but in reality they are inextricably linked.

NZFSA has implemented a risk management framework in which the regulatory response (intervention) is proportional to the level of risk. The four key steps in food safety risk management are risk identification, assessment of risk management options, implementation of the risk management decisions, and monitoring and review. Effective food safety risk management relies on appropriate risk communication and stakeholder representation at all these steps.

By taking a risk-based approach to food safety based on sound science, NZFSA can prioritise limited resources to the most significant risks in our food. This way we can ensure those food safety issues that are of most concern are addressed first.

The risk-management framework underpins every area of work and research within NZFSA and is used by international food regulators to identify, develop and implement appropriate food safety controls.

A key task of NZFSA is to monitor residues in food and we have been running monitoring programmes since NZFSA was set up in July 2002. These monitoring programmes cover an extensive range of primary products, from the production and harvest stage to the point of sale to consumers.