Ready meal ingredient origin labelling unworkable, FDF

Helen Munday, FDF director of food safety and science, was responding to a call yesterday by the UK Environment Secretary Hilary Benn for clearer food labelling, particularly in relation to country of origin on meat products.

Benn, speaking at the Oxford Farming Conference, said that the Irish dioxin crisis highlighted anomalies in the labelling regulation regarding meat products.

Meat labelling​

The meat in sausages and processed meats labelled ‘Made in the UK’ or ‘Made in the EU’ can often come from a range of different source countries; it could be reared and slaughtered in Ireland or elsewhere but labelling legislation allows it to be classified as ‘Made in the UK’ or ‘Produced in the UK’ if final processing took place there.

Benn claims food companies should state clearly on labels the country of origin for main ingredients instead of where products were last processed in order to enable shoppers make a more informed choice.

Munday told FoodProductionDaily.com that the FDF would completely agree that labelling should not mislead consumers, and she stressed that there are regulations already in place to ensure that does not happen.

“The Environment Secretary has rightly picked up on consumer concerns about the origin of the fresh meat they are buying in supermarkets.​​But that is a completely different issue to the labelling of generic products such as pies, pizzas and lasagnes which are cooked using a number of ingredients, sourced from a range of suppliers,” ​claims Munday.

Unnecessary costs​

She argues that, in this instance, most consumers do not expect country of origin labelling, unless its absence would mislead them, and she claims that any labelling amendments in this market would only add further, unnecessary costs to the food sector at a difficult time for all producers.

The Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries in the EU (CIAA) echoes the FDF in this regard, stating that the addition of the place of provenance in relation to ingredients would be unmanageable.

EU proposal ​

Meanwhile, an EU labelling proposal is seeking more precision in the rules regarding indications of the origin or provenance of a food - including the situation where a principal ingredient of a food comes from a different country than the country of manufacture.

Benn, however, is urging the UK food industry to take the initiative by voluntarily introducing country of origin labelling ahead of any EU legislation, which he said may take two years to come into force.