I'm in Brussels today, which is an appropriate place for me to blog about a story running in today's papers that claims the EU wants to scrap food labels saying 'Made in Britain'. The basis of these articles seems to be a European Commission consultative document produced in 2004, which has since been scrapped.
The media's reporting of science has been a topic for discussion on this blog, following the World Cancer Research Fund report earlier this month, and today's coverage highlights the importance of getting accurate information into the public domain.
A colleague back in the UK picked up an interesting page on the European Commission's website that deals rather neatly with this and other spurious stories in a 'rogue's gallery' of reports that have turned out to be less than accurate.
Country of origin labelling is an area that is fraught with problems and the FSA is trying to tackle these. We have recently started a nationwide consultation on the Agency's advice for country of origin labelling. It is not compulsory on many foods, but if a manufacturer makes a claim on the origin of his food, it must be accurate and not misleading. This is important, as one of the key aims of the FSA is to make sure consumers are given accurate information about the food they eat.
There have been discussions about whether laws need to be changed. Current Commission thinking appears to be that rules should be tightened so information becomes more transparent so that, for example, declarations such as 'Produce of UK' have a tighter definition.