PURPOSE: to
propose a recasting of the rules on general food labelling provisions.
PROPOSED ACT:
Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council.
CONTENT: the
draft proposal consolidates and updates two areas of labelling legislation:
the area of general food covered by Directive 2000/13/EC, and that of
nutrition labelling covered by Directive 90/496/EEC.
Directive
2000/13/EC has been amended several times and the evolution of both the food
market and consumers' expectations renders its update and modernisation
necessary. In 2003, the Commission, in close cooperation with stakeholders,
launched an evaluation of the food labelling legislation in order to reassess
its effectiveness and to identify the needs and expectations of today's
consumers in terms of food information. The conclusions, published in 2004,
identified the focus for a future proposal.
Regarding
nutritional labelling, the consumer must have access to clear, consistent and
evidence-based information. This necessity was emphasised in the White
Paper on a Strategy for Europe on Nutrition, Overweight and Obesity
related health issues, published in May 2007. There have been initiatives by
stakeholders to encourage the inclusion of nutritional information on
the front of packaging. There is divergence in the labelling systems being
used, which can create barriers to trade.
The main elements of the
proposal are as follows:
The provision of food information to consumers: the
proposal modernises, simplifies and clarifies the current food-labelling
scene by means of:
- a recasting of
the different horizontal labelling provisions. The merging of those
texts (directives) into a single piece of legislation (regulation) will
maximise synergies and increase the clarity and consistency of Community
rules;
- ensuring consistency between horizontal and vertical rules;
- a
rationalisation (update, clarification) of the compulsory information
required by Article 3(1) of Directive 2000/13/EC;
- the setting-up
of a flexible bottom-up mechanism (through national schemes) that would
enable industry to innovate, and allow for some aspects of the labelling
rules to be adapted to different and continuously changing markets and
consumer demands.
Moreover, the proposal
introduces clear principles to draw a clearer borderline between mandatory
and voluntary information. The main changes with respect to
general labelling issues are:
- the
clarification of the responsibilities regarding food labelling for the
different food business operators along the supply chain;
- to improve the
legibility of the information provided on the labelling a minimum print
size for the mandatory information is introduced;
- the
introduction of a requirement that information on allergenic ingredients
should be available for non-prepacked foods sold through retail and
catering outlets;
- given the
specificities of wine, spirits and beer, the proposal provides for the
Commission to report on the application of current rules on ingredient
listing and mandatory nutrition labelling on these products with the
possibility of specific measures to be adopted;
- with respect to
the labelling of the country of origin or place of provenance of a food,
the basic requirement in the legislation remains the same. Therefore,
such labelling is voluntary, but if the failure to give such information
might mislead the consumer, the labelling becomes mandatory. Both the
mandatory or the voluntary indication of the country of origin or place
of provenance of a food as a marketing tool, should not deceive the
consumer and should be based on harmonised criteria;
- the country of
origin should be determined in accordance with the provisions on
non-preferential origin following the Community Custom Code. The place
of provenance would refer to any place that is not the country of origin
as determined by the Community Customs Code. Rules for determining the
place of provenance will be adopted following Comitology procedure;
- criteria are
introduced for the declaration of country of origin or place of
provenance of multi-ingredient products and the country of origin or
place of provenance of meat, other than beef and veal. These criteria
would equally apply to the voluntary declaration of "EC"
origin labelling;
- lastly, the
proposal clarifies the conditions under which Member States may adopt
national rules on origin labelling.
2) Nutritional
labelling: the proposal makes nutrition labelling mandatory in the
principal field of vision of a food label. It allows for the development of
best practice in the presentation of nutrition information, including
alternative forms of expression of the nutrition information in relation to
overall daily nutrient requirements or graphical forms of presentation. The
main new aspects of the proposal are:
- the mandatory
declaration is for energy, fat, saturates, carbohydrates with specific
reference to sugars and salt expressed as amounts per 100g or per 100 ml
or per portion in the principal field of vision (front of pack) whilst
nutrients from a defined list may be declared voluntarily;
- in the case of
alcoholic drinks, derogations are provided for wine, spirits and beer,
and will be subject to a future Commission report; for other alcoholic
drinks, only the energy value must appear on the labelling;
- the mandatory
elements must also be declared in relation to reference intakes whilst
other presentation formats may be developed through voluntary national
schemes.
The new proposal
will amend, recast and replace provisions already in place under the current
horizontal food labelling legislation leading to the repeal of the following
legislation: Directives 2000/13/EC, 90/496/EEC, 87/250/EEC, 94/54/EC,
1999/10/EC, 2002/67/EC, 2004/77/EC and Regulation (EC) No 608/2004.