On Friday 24 November, the European wine sector protested against the European Commission’s guidelines published the same day on the new nutritional labelling arrangements.
The Comité Européen des Entreprises Vins (CEEV) has asked the Commission to amend the guidelines on new nutrition labels “to avoid destroying hundreds of millions of labels already printed or on the shelves”.
The request refers to mandatory electronic nutrition labelling, which will come into force on 8 December.
For months, producers have had labels printed with a QR code and the letter ‘I’. According to the Commission’s guidelines, the QR code must be identified on the label by the term ‘ingredients’.
“We cannot accept a new interpretation published by the European Commission 14 days before the application date,” explained Mauricio González Gordon, President of CEEV.
Regulation 2021/2117, published on 6 December 2021, provides for compulsory labelling of the list of ingredients and the nutritional declaration for wines and flavoured wine products from 8 December. However, the legislation gives producers the option of making the full nutritional declaration and the list of ingredients available by electronic means (electronic labels).
Link to the guidelines: https://aeur.eu/f/9ri (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)