Mar 27th, 2024
3 mins
On 12th March, Environment Secretary Steve Barclay announced plans to give shoppers more information about how and where their food is produced and ensure British farmers’ products get the recognition they deserve.
In response to the proposals, Defra have launched a consultation seeking views on options for changing origin labelling including:
- Mandatory origin labelling for minimally processed meat products, such as bacon
- Increased visibility of origin labelling
- Mandatory origin labelling for certain foods in the out of home sector, for example restaurants
- Greater control of the use of national flags on labels
The consultation also proposes:
- A mandatory label with five tiers and underpinning standards that are primarily based on method of production, differentiating between products that fall below, meet and exceed relevant baseline UK animal welfare regulations.
- The label would cover pork, chicken and eggs applying to both domestic and imported products. Labelling for dairy, beef and sheep meat will be kept under review, subject to further consultation.
- This would apply to all unprocessed pork, chicken and eggs and certain prepacked and loose minimally processed products with pork, chicken or egg.
They are also seeking views more generally on how seafood is labelled.
The consultation will run for eight weeks, closing at 23:45 on 7th May 2024.
You can read more in the recent press release
