New Zealand exporters face less regulation and lower costs than their Australian counterparts, a new report says.

The Australian Productivity Commission has released the report, Performance Benchmarking of Australian and New Zealand Business Regulation: Food Safety.

Among its findings are that Australia’s charges for exporting are generally higher, its fee structure more complex and its regulatory system for exports less reliant on economical electronic processing than New Zealand’s.

The UN Food & Agricultural Organisation (FAO) said new rules have been set to cut levels of cancer-causing chemicals and bacteria in foodstuffs from French fries to baby foods.

A joint body of the FAO and World Health Organisation, the Codex Alimentarius Commission said that with food safety awareness growing around the world, the more than 30 new standards and guidelines it adopted last week will further protect consumers’ health reports Reuters.

A Whangamata beekeeper, who admitted selling honeycomb that poisoned 22 people last Easter, has been ordered to pay more than $3000 in reparation to victims in a case brought by the New Zealand Food Safety Authority.

Kevin Prout, of Projen Apiaries, had earlier pleaded guilty to four charges under the Food Act. Three related to the sale of contaminated honeycomb, and a fourth covered incorrect labelling of the honey, which was produced and sold on the Coromandel Peninsula.