As the European Parliament prepares to discuss the regulation on the provision of food information to consumers later this month, NFU deputy president Meurig Raymond said: "Labelling needs to provide accurate, clear and relevant information so consumers can make an informed choice. People who want to buy great British food want to be certain that is exactly what they are getting.

 "We already have the country of origin on many foods such as beef, eggs, fruit and vegetables, wine, honey, olive oil and, from next year, EU organic products. Consumers want consistency in labelling across all sectors and we believe there is no reason why mandatory country of origin labelling should not be extended to the remaining sectors as well as to the main ingredients of semi-processed foods.

"The current guidelines are clearly not working. There are loopholes in the current legislation leading to clear cases of misleading labelling — such as giving the last place of processing and the place a product was packed in — that finally need to be tightened up."

 

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