The major area of disagreement is country of origin labelling (COOL) amendments voted for by Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) sitting on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee. The amendments would require COOL for meat, poultry, milk and dairy products and for meat, poultry and fish used as ingredients in processed food. This follows proposals for compulsory COOL for all fresh meat in February. The origin of beef, honey, olive oil and fresh produce must already be labelled.
A series of ‘trialogues’, beginning on May 10, will try to resolve differences between the European Council, Parliament and Commission. A third reading of FIR proposals will follow and, if inconclusive, Andrea Martinez-Inchausti, assistant director of food policy at the British Retail Consortium, said the process could fail.
Fears of FIR collapsing
“If they can’t reach agreement, all the proposals would be scrapped. Given that we have been working on this for seven or eight years, this is not something we would really want to see,” said Martinez-Inchausti.
Clare Cheney, director general of the Provision Trade Federation (PTF), said: “The fact that proposals have continued to add more on to what was intended as a simplification is bad enough, but if as a result the whole thing collapses it would be an absolute disgrace. The cost in management time would be enormous.”
An additional proposal for mandatory trans fat labelling has sparked fierce controversy. “The Food and Drink Federation believes that the call for mandatory labelling of trans fatty acids (TFAs) is completely unnecessary as the European Food Safety Authority has found that low levels of TFAs consumed in EU countries do not pose a public health concern,” said FDF communications director Terry Jones.
Industry concern over trans fats
Artificially added TFAs had largely been removed by UK manufacturers, while small amounts occurred naturally and unavoidably in animal derived foods, such as butter, milk, beef and lamb, said Jones. Some manufacturers argue labelling should distinguish between naturally occurring and artificially added TFAs.
Martinez-Inchausti said: “Our personal position would be against compulsory declaration of TFAs. In the US, where it was made compulsory, people got confused about what fats they had to reduce in their diets.”
With minimal TFA levels in products, the Food Standards Agency has shifted its emphasis in recent years to reducing public consumption of sat fats.
Cheney said the PTF, which represents manufacturers and suppliers of foods containing naturally occurring TFAs, would be “extremely concerned” if they had to be labelled.