An EU legislation approved recently by the European Parliament requires food labels to feature mandatory nutritional information and guideline daily amounts. Clearer information on food packages will improve consumers' opportunity to make healthy, well-informed choices upon their purchase of food products.
The European Commission set the ball rolling for the adoption of this legislation which will apply to all pre-packed foods intended for delivery to final consumers and to foods intended for supply to mass caterers. It will however not apply to foods, which are packaged directly at the place of sale before delivery to the final consumer nor will it apply to operations such as the occasional handling, serving and selling of food by private persons at events such as charities, or local community fairs.
Quantities of fat, saturates, sugar and salt as well as energy must be indicated on the front of food packs, rather than at the back, or hidden behind the fold of the food pack. In addition, guideline daily amounts (GDAs) must be expressed with values per 100g or per 100ml instead of "per portion".
Of importance is the emphasis on misleading labelling. Labelling must be made easy to understand so as to enable consumers to make informed choices. Therefore, foods will not be allowed to be labelled in a way that could create the impression that they are a different food, by for instance, suggesting in the description or pictorial representations on the packaging the presence of a particular product or an ingredient when, in reality, the product which the packaging contains is an imitation food or contains a substitute for an ingredient normally used in a product.
In such cases, the packaging must prominently bear the marking "imitation" or "produced with" (designation of the substitute ingredient instead of designation of the ingredient replaced). Food information must not be misleading by explicitly advertising a substantial reduction in sugar and/or fat content, even though there is no corresponding reduction in the energy content (expressed in kilojoules or kilocalories) of the food in question. It must not use the description "suitable for persons with special dietary requirements", if the food in question does not comply with EU rules on foods intended for persons with such requirements.
MEPs, however, rejected a proposal for "traffic light" coding system, which would have required certain processed foods to bear red, amber and green values to indicate high, medium or low levels of salt, sugar and fat. The UK, for example, already uses colour-coded labelling to give consumers information at-a-glance about the content of key nutrients relevant to health. Fears however that an EU-wide "traffic light" labelling could stigmatise some foods led the EU Parliament to give this proposal the thumbs down.
Country-of-origin labelling is already compulsory for certain foods, such as beef, honey, olive oil and fresh fruit and vegetables. Approval at the level of the EU Parliament has been given now for mandatory country-of-origin labelling for meat, poultry, fish, dairy produce, fruit and vegetables. In addition, meat labels need to state exactly where the animal was born, reared and slaughtered, and whether slaughtering occurred without stunning.
Once the legislation is adopted, food businesses will have three years to adapt to the rules. Smaller operators having fewer than 100 employees and an annual turnover under €5 million would have five years to comply.
Dr Grech is an associate with Guido de Marco & Associates and heads its European law division.