Friday, 27 March 2009

Cloverfood

Interesting news from Town Hall this week: Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore is bringing in "sustainable, healthy and cruelty-free catering" at council events, which means the end of bottled water, high-fat cakes, eggs, dairy desserts and "bad" species of fish (I can't find the primary source, but am taking this to mean they won't be serving up overfished species...?)

Lest this sound like an admirable thing — City of Sydney council setting a good example for environmentally conscious living — Liberal councillor Shayne Mallard helpfully explained what was really going on:

"We are being dictated to by a radical green agenda telling us what fish we can eat, what water we drink and banning eggs or Tim Tams instead of focusing on issues like saving jobs."

Gotcha. That pesky radical green agenda yet again, eh?

And it was the idea of a ban on Tim Tams (due to concerns about child/slave labour in cocoa production) that ended up being the main story — cue TV report and overuse of words including, but not limited to, "Aussie" and "icon". On the plus side, said news report made mention of The Cruelty Free Shop and the Leda Choculance biscuits they sell.

Arnott's has said that the chocolate they use is produced without child labour, and City of Sydney issued a statement to clarify their position: "No particular brand of food or drink has been identified as being 'off the menu', including Tim Tams." But they are "looking at ways to ensure that sustainable, locally produced, healthy and cruelty-free options are considered when catering for internal and external council meetings and events." Sounds good!

3 comments:

Adrian said...

I went to the citytalk lecture on sustainable transport this week. At the start of the talk the MC put a packet of tim tams on the table and made a joke about them. I must say, as a no tv, radio, newspaper type the reference went over my head.

Anonymous said...

arnotts may say their not using child labor, but they certainly can't make the claim they are "aussie"! they're owned by cambell soup company!

M.L. said...

Ha! Good point, Philippa.