Brussels, 30/06/2009 (Agence Europe) - From Wednesday 1st July, specific marketing standards will be removed for 26 types of fruit and vegetables, allowing the sale of curvy cucumbers, curious carrots and bendy beans (EUROPE 9781). This forms part of the Commission's ongoing efforts to streamline and simplify EU rules and cut red tape. It will cut waste and allow consumers a wider choice of products. These efforts, above all, help limit waste and offer greater consumer choice. Up until now, “wonky” fruit and vegetables were used by industry or discarded. The European commissioner for agriculture, Mariann Fischer Boel, stressed that “it is absurd to throw away perfectly edible products just because they are shaped differently”. Last December, the Commission repealed specific marketing standards for 26 types of fruit and vegetables, meaning the end of EU rules governing the size and shape of these products - which include cucumbers, Brussels sprouts, melons, mushrooms and garlic. For 10 types of fruit and vegetables - apples, citrus fruit, kiwi fruit, lettuce, peaches and nectarines, pears, strawberries, sweet peppers, table grapes and tomatoes - marketing standards will remain. But even for these 10, member states could for the first time allow shops to sell products which do not respect the standards, as long as they are clearly labelled. In other words, the new rules will allow national authorities to permit the sale of all fruit and vegetables, regardless of their shape and size. (http://www.ec.europa.eu/agriculture/capreform/fruitveg/index_fr.htm ). (L.C./transl.rh)