MEP Watch - Food Labelling: Know What You're Buying

‘Food labelling must be easily recognisable, legible and understandable for the average consumer’(Amendment 67).

When we go shopping for food from our supermarkets, we may look at a particular product and ask ourselves: ‘Is this good for me?’ ‘Should I pick something healthier than this?’ ‘Maybe this is not too bad afterall?’

Well, the European Parliament tried to make this frequent moment in our life easier. Food labeling was discussed and some very important results came out of it.

It is important to note that this vote covered almost every aspect of labeling- from the position of the labeling to what should be written, in what language etc. etc.

I went over the amendments and it wasn’t an easy task at all-there were over 300 of them! I picked up what I think are the most relevant for us as consumers and those that were either interesting to give a second thought about or those which created a bit of a heated debate.

Firstly, it is useless to read the nutritional information on a food item without having any idea of the difference between proteins and carbohydrates, that there are different types of fats and the limit above which salt can become dangerous. Thus amendment 4 states that

“Education and information campaigns are an important mechanism for improving consumer understanding of food information.”

This amendment was adopted by the majority of the European Parliament.

Amendment 6 excludes a set of parties which are involved with the food sector from following the regulations set out. These are farmers which market directly their own products and providers of mass catering services. The reason for the former is that farmers would be overstretched if they had to go through all the process of labeling their own products- and since farmers do not use extra ingredients or other additives this is understandable. The mass catering services are not obliged to follow these regulations because there are no standardized procedures for them and ingredients change all the time. This amendment was adopted by the majority of the European Parliament.

Amendment 13 requires products which claim they have some particular physical benefits- for example cereal flakes claiming that they lead to weight loss- to have these claims accompanied by a diet plan explaining the conditions under which these results may be obtained. This amendment was adopted by the majority of the European Parliament.

There is no need to comment on amendment 16 which states that “It is possible to envisage consumers obtaining additional information via terminals placed in supermarkets. Those terminals would, by reading the barcode, furnish information about the product concerned. Likewise, it is possible to envisage consumers accessing additional information via a web page on the Internet.” This amendment was adopted by the majority of the European Parliament.

Article 37 of the text specifies that

“To appeal to the average consumer and to serve the informative purpose for which it is introduced, and given the current level of knowledge on the subject of nutrition, the information provided should be simple and easily understood. Research has indicated that consumers find the information in the principal field of view or ‘front of pack’ is useful when making purchasing decisions. Therefore, to ensure that consumers can readily see the essential nutrition information when purchasing foods such information should be in the principal field of view of the label.”

A very important amendment is amendment 251 which refers to GMOs. With the advent of GMO cultivation behind the door for Europeans, consumers have the right to know if the product they’re consuming is genetically modified. This amendment states that

“Operators in the catering sector and anyone providing food products shall inform consumers whenever the product intended for consumption is a GMO product and/or contains derivatives and substances that may be classified as GMOs.”

FROM THE FIVE MALTESE MEPS ONLY JOHN ATTARD MONTALTO VOTED IN FAVOUR OF THIS AMENDMENT. THIS AMENDMENT WAS DEFEATED OVERALL.

Another amendment which may be very interesting to ponder about and which is the first in its field is amendment 266. This amendment combines food production with its source and its potential social impacts by letting consumers know if their food has been produced under conditions such as child labour, forced labour, discrimination etc. by including a percentage value which would be set to 0 if a guarantee can be given on the absence of these practices. Related with this is amendment 271 which states that

“it shall be admissible to provide information on environmental, social and ethical considerations regarding foodstuffs.”

BOTH THESE AMENDMENTS WERE VOTED AGAINST BY THE MAJORITY OF PARLIAMENT.

Amendments 272, 288 and 314 were perhaps the most hotly debated. They provided for the possibility of including a coloured scheme for nutritional information to give consumers a better schematic representation of what ingredients they should be cautious about and make the information more understandable to consumers. In amendment 314 it was suggested that

“the text "Low", "Medium" or "High" in combination with the colours green, amber and red”.

SIMON BUSUTTIL AND DAVID CASA VOTED AGAINST THIS COLOR-CODED SCHEME WHILE JOHN ATTARD MONTALTO, LOUIS GRECH AND EDWARD SCICLUNA VOTED IN FAVOUR. THIS SCHEME WAS DEFEATED OVERALL AND NEITHER OF THE AMENDMENTS MADE IT THROUGH TO THE FINAL ADOPTED TEXT.

Through these texts the European Parliament even rejected these coloured schemes applied at national levels.

Some other amendments which one would do well to notice include:

• Amendment 10 states that “mandatory food labelling should be confined to basic information which is demonstrably of great interest to the majority of consumers” and this is done “to avoid unnecessary packaging waste” and “to enable food information law to adapt to changing consumers' needs for information”.

ADOPTED

• In line with amendment 4 discussed above, amendment 26 states that” The mandatory provision of nutrition information on the front and back of the packaging should be supported by actions by Member States such as a nutritional action plan as part of their public health policy, which will provide specific recommendations for nutrition education for the public and support informed food choice.”

ADOPTED

• Amendment 33 calls on a ban on artificial trans fatty acids- the consumption of which are directly related to overweight and obesity. Until such a ban enters into force, the labeling of this ingredient should be mandatory.

THIS AMENDMENT WAS VOTED AGAINST BY THE MAJORITY OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT.

• Amongst other amendments focusing on the country of origin of foods, amendment 65 states that “For meat and foods containing meat, the country of origin shall be defined as the country in which the animal was born, reared for most of its life, and slaughtered. If different, all three places shall be given when reference is made to the country of origin.”

THIS AMENDMENT WAS VOTED AGAINST BY THE MAJORITY OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT.

• If the product contains an ingredient which is an ‘imitation’, for example cheese made from vegetable oil, amendment 78 states that ‘the packaging must prominently bear the marking 'imitation' or 'produced with’.

ADOPTED

• Deceiving clauses on packaging should be reduced through amendment 79 which doesn’t allow packaging to highlight normal properties of food as specific characteristics. For example, fruit gums cannot bear the slogan ‘fat-free’ because fruit gums contain no fat by nature.

ADOPTED

• Article 16 of the text adopted explicitly states that ‘… mandatory food information shall appear in a language easily understood by the consumers of the Member States where a food is marketed.’ You cannot have information appearing only in Arabic if you live in Malta.
  

• The word ‘nano’ must be indicated for products containing nanomaterials according to amendment 130.

ADOPTED

• The term ‘vegetarian’ should not be applied to foods that are, or are made from or with the aid of products derived from animals that have died, have been slaughtered, or animals that die as a result of being eaten. The term ‘vegan’ should not be applied to foods that are, or are made from or with the aid of, animals or animal products (including products from living animals)- Amendment 175.

ADOPTED

Votes were also passed to ask producers of processed foods, such as biscuits and prepared meals, to indicate on the front packaging the content of energy, salt, sugar, fat and saturated fat together which should be accompanied by the guideline daily amounts and expressed with values per 100g or per 100ml.

This vote was preceded by huge pressures from the food and drink industry. The industry invested more than 1 billion euros to lobby to block the coloured scheme for products- a figure denied by the Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries of the EU.

Corporate Europe Observatory said:

“Food industry lobbyists have bombarded MEPs with information about the labelling scheme, in the biggest lobbying campaign seen in Brussels in recent years,” and that industrial lobbyists managed to "drown out the message from public health campaigners on a scale of 100 to 1."