Shoppers who reach for a pack of bacon marked as made in New Zealand can be buying meat from pigs raised in Spain, Germany or Canada, and the Government has decided the rules that allow it will not change.
RNZ reported on 9 September that the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Cameron Brewer, has told the pork industry he will not amend the country of origin labelling rules, while accepting that some branding may leave shoppers with the wrong idea about where their bacon came from.
In a statement to RNZ, Brewer said the regulations already ensured origin information was available to shoppers in a way that was clear and informative, and that the complaint upheld by a parliamentary committee was about how certain pork products were branded rather than the origin information they had to disclose.
“Although it might be possible for an imported meat product that complies with regulations to be branded in a way that misleads consumers about the product’s origin, I am not aware of evidence that this is occurring on a scale that would justify further regulatory change,” he said.
He added, “I acknowledge your concern that some branding practices may give consumers a misleading impression about whether pork was raised in New Zealand.”
NZPork chief executive Brent Kleiss told RNZ the decision was infuriating, and that his members would be making a noise about it. He said his fear was that the minister had been given poor advice or had decided to move the problem off his desk rather than deal with it. Kleiss also said he visited a PAK’nSAVE in Christchurch last week that stocked no bacon or ham from pigs bred and processed in New Zealand at all.
The rule at the centre of the argument is not obscure. Bacon and ham have been covered by country of origin labelling since the Consumer Information Standards (Origin of Food) Regulations 2021 took effect, on 12 February 2022 for fresh and thawed food and 12 May 2023 for frozen food, according to the Commerce Commission. Regulation 8 defines cured pork as a processed pork product that is at least 30 percent pork flesh by weight and is represented as bacon or ham, so a supermarket rasher is squarely inside the net. Regulation 9 says the origin information for meat and cured pork is the country or countries in which the animals were raised, not where the meat was smoked, sliced or packed.
The gap sits in regulation 10, which sets out how that information must be shown. It requires “clear and legible text in English or MΔori”, and it requires the connection between the text and the product to be clear, on the item, on its packaging, or on a nearby sign. What it does not say is anything about size, position or prominence. Nothing in it stops a manufacturer putting a large New Zealand brand on the front of a packet and a small line naming four possible source countries on the back.
Parliament noticed. In July 2023 the Regulations Review Committee upheld an NZPork complaint and found, in wording quoted by the industry body, that “using fine print on the back of packaging to list the origin of the meat in bacon or ham, while labelling the bacon prominently on the front as ‘made in New Zealand’, could be materially confusing or misleading to consumers”. The committee recommended the Government consider amending regulation 10, and noted that Australian labelling requirements are more rigorous than New Zealand’s. Three years on, that recommendation has now been answered with a no.
The volumes involved are not marginal. NZPork’s own consumer guidance says approximately 60 percent of the pork eaten in New Zealand comes from overseas, and around 85 percent of that imported pork is processed here, which is exactly the step that lets a product carry a made in New Zealand claim. A release from Animal Policy International in May 2026 put imports at 63.3 percent of New Zealand pork consumption in 2024 and 2025, and said about 60 percent of imported pork comes from countries that still permit sow stalls, which have been banned here since 2016. That release also carried Curia Market Research polling of 1,000 New Zealand farmers taken between 7 and 19 April 2026, which found 79 percent agreed imported animal products should have to meet New Zealand welfare standards.
Brewer’s alternative is the existing consumer law. He suggested NZPork take any specific labelling complaint to the Commerce Commission, which enforces the Fair Trading Act 1986. Section 13(j) of that Act already bars any person in trade from making “a false or misleading representation concerning the place of origin of goods or services”, and the penalty for breaching it is about to get much heavier. The Fair Trading Amendment Bill announced on 13 May 2026 lifts the maximum company penalty from $600,000 to $5 million, or three times the value of the commercial gain or the transactions, whichever is greater. Brewer said at the time the Bill would go to select committee for six months.
That is a different tool from the one NZPork asked for. A Fair Trading Act case is taken after the fact against one trader over one label, and someone has to bring it. A change to regulation 10 would apply to every packet on every shelf from the day it took effect. Australia went the second way. Its Country of Origin Food Labelling Information Standard 2016 became mandatory on 1 July 2018 and requires priority foods, pork among them, to carry a standard mark on the pack with a kangaroo symbol and a bar chart showing how much of the content is Australian.
Foodstuffs told RNZ it supported customers having clear and accurate information about the products they bought, including country of origin information, in line with the labelling requirements, and said the availability of New Zealand pork could vary between stores depending on customer demand, supplier availability and the range stocked.
Until something changes, the practical advice for anyone who wants New Zealand bacon is to ignore the front of the packet. NZPork tells shoppers to look for its country of origin labels and the wording born and raised in New Zealand, which is the only phrasing that describes the pig rather than the factory.
Do you check the back of the bacon packet, or has a made in New Zealand label ever caught you out? Tell us in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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