Solution to food labelling puzzle to be found under Swedish presidency

The European Commission and EU lawmakers will keep putting together all the pieces of the complex front-of-pack food labelling puzzle during the upcoming Swedish EU Council presidency after little progress was reached under the Czech one.

The Czech Council presidency, which will conclude at the end of the year, was supposed to set a milestone in the outstanding dossier of food labelling as the European Commission was expected to put forward its final proposal.

However, efforts from the presidency slowed down when the EU executive communicated they would further push back the initiative to collect some more evidence.

The only moment to discuss existing practices and possible future options was during a conference open to stakeholders organised by the Czech presidency in November.

“Following what was said [at the conference], it became clear that the new harmonised system for front-of-pack nutrition labelling should be based on scientific advice and needs to be clear,” Czech Agriculture Minister Zdeněk Nekula said at the EU Agrifish Council on Monday (12 December).

The forthcoming Swedish presidency will prioritise the revision of the food information to consumers regulation and in particular “its food labelling provisions”, according to their programme, made public on Wednesday (14 December).

Ahead of the presentation of its proposal in 2023, the EU executive is currently working on an impact assessment based on the scientific opinion, among others, of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the Commission’s Joint Research Center, as well as the input from relevant stakeholders.

“It is important that the future proposal at the EU level is balanced and has a real added value for citizens and also for our food businesses,” Roser Domenech Amado, acting director for One Health at the Commission’s health service (DG SANTE), told a recent EURACTIV event.

The EU official said she expected the Commission to be looking into older solutions for front-of-pack labelling currently on the market to “take everything into account, seeing the pros and cons of different systems”.

“Work is still underway. We are still ensuring to have all strong evidence” she said, adding that getting to a final solution is difficult considering that the future EU-wide label framework “has to be clear, complete and scientifically based at the same time.”

“All these need to be on a tiny label. So it’s really a bit of a nightmare [for those tasked with putting forward the proposal],” Domenech Amado said.

Food labelling proposal will be data-led, Commission says

Information on the sustainability of food products in the EU’s forthcoming harmonised front-of-pack labelling will heavily rely on data collected by producers, an EU official has said. Other stakeholders were quick to point out, however, that sustainability is only one factor in the complex labelling process.

Making informed, healthy choices

The ongoing revision concerns the nutritional aspects but also the extension of origin indication for certain products, the revision of the rules on date marking and best before/used by, as well as the labelling of alcoholic beverages.

“We have to be very careful that we don’t have a triangle of labels in the front package label,” said Christine Schneider, centre-right MEP at the Europen Parliament’s agriculture committee (AGRI).

For this reason, she already proposed to consider implementing also digital solutions on labels such as QR codes when the Farm to Fork strategy, the EU’s flagship food policy, was discussed by lawmakers.

Although agreeing in principle, the Commission’s Domenech Amado said that “it’s true that a lot of you don’t go to the supermarket to read with your codes and, in principle, you need to have information available very quickly”.

Stakeholders and policy-makers now agree that labelling could have an impact on giving the consumer the right information to make decisions for more sustainable and healthier diets and lifestyles.

“We don’t want the consumers to only make their decision because of the price,” stressed MEP Schneider, while Domenec Amado added that “our ambition is to empower consumers to make informed, healthy and sustainable food choices”.

MEP: Go digital to help consumers navigate nutrition labels

Nutritional and health information should go digital to harmonise and streamline labelling systems and help consumers navigate complex dietary decisions, MEP Christine Schneider told EURACTIV in an interview.

Harmonisation, not discrimination

Putting together all the pieces of the food labelling puzzle is essential to avoid EU countries adopting different approaches, some more based on dietary habits, others on nutritional aspects and food origin.

“We’ve had some recent discussions in the margin of the EU council as well and a majority of member states would prefer to have harmonised rules at the EU level rather than the national measures,” explained Domenech Amado.

However, Czech minister Nekula stressed that there is a risk that “simply having a one size fits all approach may not be the best approach for all regions”.

One of the currently used labelling systems, the French colour-coded Nutri-Score, has been harshly criticised by the minister for focusing only on certain aspects while neglecting others.

“We shouldn’t focus too much on specific food products but rather on the ingredients of these products,” Nekula said, adding that certain food products are labelled too negatively while there should be no discrimination against foodstuff.

Carrie Ruxton, science director at the Fruit Juice Science Centre, said the new system should not just focus on the negative nutrients.

“Labelling obviously can help, but only if it gives a holistic view of foods,” she said.

This article follows the EURACTIV-organised policy debate “Empowering consumers to make healthy food choices” supported by European Fruit Juice Association.

[Editing by Zoran Radosavljevic]

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