Bread and bakery products

Overview

This is a guide to the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code (the Food Standards Code) labelling and compositional standards for bread and bakery products sold in, or imported into, Australia and New Zealand.

Chapter 1 of the Food Standards Code describes the labelling requirements for all food products in Australia.

Chapter 2, Standard 2.1.1 Cereals and cereal products includes requirements specific to bread and bakery products.

Labelling requirements for food businesses

Labelling requirements vary depending on how the product is sold. For example, products sold:

• packaged on supermarket shelves must meet the full labelling requirements
• directly from the premises from which they were made have fewer labelling requirements. This is because the consumer can get information about the product at the time of purchase.

If you sell or supply food for retail sale in stores, markets, online or from vending machines it is likely that you will be required to comply with the country of origin labelling requirements.

Retail bakeries

A retail bakery is where food is sold directly from the place of manufacture to a consumer.

The following labelling information is required:

• mandatory warning statements, advisory statements and declarations on display or provided to the purchaser on request (verbally or in writing)
• nutrition information panel where a where a nutritional claim is made (e.g. ‘low fat’, ‘high fibre’, ‘gluten free’), on display or provided to the purchaser on request (verbally or in writing)
• if offal is in meat pies or any other food, the purchaser must be informed at time of purchase. Offal includes: brain, heart, kidney, liver, tongue or tripe (e.g. steak and kidney pie)
• percentage labelling of characterising ingredients may apply (e.g. percentage of wholemeal flour in wholemeal bread).

Ingredient suppliers

Food that you receive from ingredient suppliers must include the following information either on the food labels or on accompanying documentation:

• name or description of the food that indicates the true nature of the food
• lot identification
• name and business address of the supplier.

When requested, the ingredient supplier is required to provide (in writing) any other information related to the ingredient that you need for compliance with the compositional and labelling requirements of the Food Standards Code.

Wholesale bakeries

A wholesale bakery is where food is sold packaged, or sold for catering purposes e.g. supermarkets, service stations, convenience stores, schools, restaurants caterers or self-catering institutions where food is offered for immediate consumption.

Packaged food that is sold from premises at a different location to where it was made, requires full labelling.

Mandatory warnings, advisory statements and declarations

Food that contains unpasteurised egg products or unpasteurised milk products, must include an advisory statement that the product has not been pasteurised.

Food that contains any of the following substances, must have the following information to be displayed on, or in connection with the display of the food provided to the purchaser on request, either verbally or in writing.

The presence of any of the following foods as ingredients must be declared:

• cereals containing gluten and their products, namely, wheat, rye, barley, oats and spelt and their hybridised strains
• glucose syrups made from wheat starch
• crustacea and their products
• egg and egg products
• fish and fish products
• milk and milk products
• peanuts and peanut products
• sesame seeds and sesame seed products
• soybeans and soybean products
• tree nuts and tree nut products (does not include coconut)
• lupin and lupin products
• added sulphites in concentrations of 10mg/kg or more

Note: There are other foods that require mandatory advisory statements or declarations that for industry relevance, have not been included here. For more information, refer to Standard 1.2.3 Information requirements – warning statements, advisory statements and declarations.

Date marking 

If the food that you manufacture is packaged and sold from another premises, one of the labelling requirements is to include a date mark for the product.

Bakery products that require a date mark, must be labelled with either a ‘Use By’ or ‘Best Before’ date, depending on the nature of the product:

• A ‘Use By’ date must be used where the food should be consumed before a certain date because of health or safety reasons.
• A ‘Best Before’ date must be used where the food should be consumed before a certain date to maintain the quality of the food and prevent food spoilage.

The label on a package of bread that has a shelf life of less than 7 days, may use either a:

• ‘Best Before’ date
• ‘Baked On’ date (using the words ‘Baked On’ or ‘Bkd On’)
• ‘Baked For’ date (using the words ‘Baked For’ or ‘Bkd For’)

Products with a shelf life shorter than 3 months require the day and month. Products with greater than 3 months’ shelf life require the month and year.

A food cannot be legally sold past its ‘Use By’ date.

For more information refer to Standard 1.2.5 Information requirements – date marking of food for sale.

Characterising ingredients and components

Characterising ingredients and components must be declared on a food label (or in connection with food on display, or verbally, as permitted by the Food Standards Code) as a percentage of the food. See Standard 1.2.10 Characterising ingredients and components of food.

Percentage labelling helps consumers make informed choices about food by letting them compare how much characterising ingredient or component is present in similar products. The proportion of a characterising ingredient or component is required for all food products.  Exceptions include the following:

• unpackaged food
• food made and/or packaged in the presence of the purchaser, e.g. sandwiches, filled rolls, etc.
• food for catering purposes, e.g. food for use in restaurants, canteens
• delivered packaged and ready for immediate consumption at the express order of the purchaser, e.g. home delivery
• sold at a fundraising event, e.g. cake stalls, school fetes, etc.
• in small packages, i.e. a package with a surface area of less than 100cm².

Food additives 

Food additives must not be present in food, unless expressly permitted by the Food Standards Code.

Permitted additives for bread and bakery products, and the maximum permitted level, are provided in the table in Schedule 15, section S15—5. See the

• 6. Cereals and cereal products
• 7. Breads and bakery products.

Mandatory fortification 

Iodised salt must be used for making bread where salt would otherwise be used, except for organic bread.

Wheat flour (except organic wheat flour), including wholemeal, must contain:

• no less than 2mg/kg and no more than 3mg/kg of folic acid
• no less than 6.4mg/kg of thiamin.

Composition and labelling of meat pies

The mandatory fortification requirements outlined above do not apply to pizza bases, breadcrumbs, pastries, cakes (including but not limited to brioche, panettone and stollen), biscuits or crackers. Further information can be found in Standard 2.1.1 Cereal and cereal products.