Pig products have been trotting across the news lately. Last week, Channel 4's Dispatches looked at what goes into a cheap supermarket sausage and this week Jamie Oliver has pledged to save British bacon. So, where do your bacon and sausages come from and what needs to go on the label?
The first thing to say is that country of origin labelling does not affect food safety but is there to give you more information about where your food comes from to help you decide what to buy.
In the UK, certain foods have to say what country they are from, for example honey, fish and wine, but other food only needs to say where it is from if there is a chance that people could be misled. For example, using a famous landmark such as the Eiffel Tower on a product would suggest that the product was French – if it isn’t, this could be misleading.
The exception to this is if a substantial change to a product has been made such as making pork into sausages. In this case, a retailer can correctly label the sausages ‘made in the UK'.
We know that the information on food labels is important to people. A survey we carried out in 2008 found that country of origin labelling was important to over half of the people interviewed and they were particularly interested about the origin of fresh meat and fruit and vegetables.
So, in November we updated our country of origin guidance making it clear to food producers what they need to put on the label by law but also what we recommend as good practice. For example, in the case of sausages made in the UK from imported meat we suggest it would be more helpful to consumers if the labelling declared 'Made in the UK from Dutch Pork'.
Some parts of the food industry already provide good origin information and we would certainly wish to encourage further uptake of our best practice guidance. We are also pushing in Europe for the promotion of clear and consistent food labels to help people make appropriate and informed choices.