Trade Talk

Chilling headlines about global food supply have been hitting the press. "Soaring price of food leads to riots" (Telegraph​); "Rice traders hit by panic" (FT​); "Egyptians riot over bread prices" (Telegraph​), and so on. Other reports concern shortages of corn, beef, fish and milk.

Against this backdrop, while Rome burns, the European Commission is busying itself drafting proposals for, arguably, disproportionate and potentially unenforceable new rules on food labelling - a pedant's picnic. Roget's Thesaurus​ defines the use of the term 'pedantic' as: "A pedantic approach to marketing may be all right in the classroom, but it doesn't sell products." This could be paraphrased thus: "A pedantic approach to labelling may be all right in times of plenty but it doesn't feed the world."

I'm reminded of the 1980s when food scares reached 'epidemic' proportions. A delegation of Russian consumer organisations visited the UK for discussions with counterparts here. First, the UK contingent outlined the burning consumer issues on their agenda, mainly to do with safety. The Russians made polite noises, but their prime interest was how the UK dealt with queues at the food shops. They didn't care two hoots whether food was tainted with contaminants, pathogens or allergens let alone the minutiae of the labelling. Their priority was getting something to eat.

Elaborate labelling is a luxury that we all have to pay for. We have to pay for the designs, as well as the officials and authorities who draft and enforce the regulations, and to bear the cost of food waste due to withdrawal of non-compliant products. The more regulations, the more food will inevitably be thrown away. But when push comes to shove, what does it matter whether the font size is under 3mm, or whether nutrition labelling is in the same field of vision?

The frightening thing is that among those calling for this information are lobbyists who should be more concerned about the environment or starvation in developing countries. I'm not saying that this is an 'either, or' situation. Of course, we need labelling to protect people who can afford food from being ripped off. And there was a crying need for consolidation of existing regulations. But is the proposed degree of gold-plating necessary when it is hard to imagine any real benefit in practice?

Is taxpayers' money being well-spent on such fripperies when one day the labels could be looking for the food, rather than the other way around?

Clare Cheney​​ is director general of the Provision Trade Federation​