Brussels, 20/05/2015 (Agence Europe) - Consumers will have to wait for compulsory origin labelling for dairy products and some meats if one is to judge from the conclusions of two reports published by the European Commission on Wednesday 20 May under the food information for consumers regulation (see EUROPE 11298).
The first report, on dairy products and meats other than beefmeat, pigmeat, poultrymeat, sheepmeat and goatmeat, concluded that voluntary labelling of country of origin would be the most appropriate since the potential addition costs of compulsory country of origin labelling would have too great an impact on dairy producers and the operational costs for so-called “minor” meats would outstrip the benefits.
The second report, on unprocessed foods, single ingredient products and ingredients that represent more than 50% of a food, forms the view that consumers are interested in origin labelling for all these food categories but that voluntary origin labelling, combined with existing mandatory origin labelling regimes for specific foods or categories of food, is the most suitable way forward with regard to the internal market and international trade.
These two reports had been due from the Commission by December of last year. (Aminata Niang)