Heart Foundation asks cafes and restaurants to review kids menus 

The Heart Foundation is calling on New Zealand cafés and restaurants to improve their children’s menus, with recent research highlighting the poor quality of foods being offered.

Dave Monro, Heart Foundation Food and Nutrition Manager, says although most adult (main) menus feature a number of healthy options, children’s menus are all too often coming up short.

“What we’re seeing is a lot of fried foods, high-sugar beverages and very few vegetables being offered to children when they’re dining out with their parents,” he says.

“It’s true that parents and kids often want a treat when they’re eating out as a family, but that doesn’t mean unhealthy items should be dominating children’s menus.”

In September this year, the Heart Foundation assessed the menus of 79 cafés and restaurants (not fast food restaurants) across New Zealand.

The key findings were 49% of children’s menu items came with deep-fried chips, and 32% offered a deep-fried meal as the main item. Only 38% of meal items were listed as coming with vegetables, and 43% of menus offered children’s drinks, with most being mocktails, spiders, soft drinks and juices.

Monro says the findings are highly concerning given about one-third of New Zealand children are overweight or obese.

“All sectors of the food and beverage industry need to play their part,” Monro says.

Monro says a simple way for food services to improve their kids’ menu is to offer smaller portions of healthy adult dishes to children. The Heart Foundation would also like to see more vegetables available in main meals for children, and salad or colourful vegetables on the side of others.

Water and milk remain the healthiest drink options.

To help chefs improve children’s menus, the Heart Foundation will be providing tools such as recipes, tips and menu guidelines.

Retail sale of raw apricot kernels prohibited 

Retail sale of raw apricot kernels is prohibited as from 7 December, when changes to the Food Standards Code came into effect.

Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) Chief Executive Officer Steve McCutcheon said FSANZ has found that raw apricot kernels (both with and without skin) pose an acute public health and safety risk.

“Raw apricot kernels contain cyanogenic glycosides, which are broken down to release cyanide when eaten,” Mr McCutcheon said.

The prohibition does not apply to apricot kernel-derived ingredients which can be shown to be safe to use as ingredients in other foods.

Innovative UHT dairy products for Miraka Dairy 

CEO of Miraka, Richard Wyeth has welcomed a collaborative partnership with FoodHQ partners AgResearch and Plant & Food Research to develop a new family of shelf-stable and healthy whole-food-based beverages that will appeal to high-value segments of Asian markets and create significant new value for the New Zealand food industry.

AgResearch Science Team Leader Dr Brendan Haigh, who leads the research, says this will be achieved by developing new scientific knowledge and technology around manufacturing of dairy-based UHT milk products which contain plant or vegetable materials.

The project has been funded in the recently announced Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s 2015 science investment round.

“The project team’s role is to find effective combinations of plant-based ingredients with fresh milk to achieve the stability and functionality required, with no addition of highly refined stabilisers, emulsifiers or thickeners,” says Dr Haigh.

“Developing new dairy foods with consumer appeal and that also deliver the wellness characteristics of plant ingredients is a technical challenge,” says Dr Lee Huffman from Plant & Food Research.

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Call for Papers  – 2016 AIP National Conference 

The Australian Institute of Packaging (AIP) is currently at the planning stage of the 2016 National Conference that will be held at Crown Promenade, Southbank, Victoria on 1st and 2nd of June.

The Conference will attract delegates from all facets of the packaging industry at both technologist and management levels.

The AIP is looking for a broad range of speakers from all areas of the packaging industry to ensure that the AIP National Conference offers something for everyone.

The Programming Committee is looking for presentations and papers under the theme 2020 Packaging and Processing Vision and the incorporation of case studies and real-life applications from end-users is strongly encouraged.  Please ensure that your paper is delivered at a high-technical level, incorporating case studies and application stories.

Deadline for abstracts:  Friday the 22nd of January 2016.

To access the call for papers application form click here