EPHA argues that food labels must meet the consumers’ right to information about what is in a product and enable them to make informed choices about their food purchases and consumption.
Poor nutrition has a direct impact on overall health and life expectancy. Growing rates of obesity and overweight across Europe increase the risk of serious diet-related chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and stroke, and certain forms of cancer. Food labels, if well designed and informative could be an important and effective mechanism to improve people’s diets and overall health.
Every year hundreds of new foodstuffs are put onto the market and there is a growing public interest in health issues generally and more specifically in diet and nutrition questions. Consumers need to be confident that what they are buying is safe, they need to know what is in the product and information about the origin, characteristics, quality and nutritional properties of the food item. Labels must be legible, accurate, informative and easy to understand for consumers. For people living with certain health conditions or allergies, food labels are critical to help them meet their dietary constraints.
In the past, each European country had its own rules that governed what manufacturers were allowed to put on labels. With the introduction of the internal market, in which products manufactured in one country could be sold in any other member state, there was an immediate need for legislation to protect consumers and to eliminate obstacles to trade.
EU legislation on food labelling therefore has three main aims:
– to inform and protect citizens,
– to enhance the free movement of food products, and
– to enable consumers to make informed choices.
The principle used to develop EU laws is that of functional labelling. This means making sure that consumers can get all the information that they need on the ingredients of the product, the manufacturer and the way that the product should be be stored and prepared. Once these legal obligations have been met, the food industry is free to provide any additional information that they choose on the condition that it is is accurate and does not mislead the consumer.
Directive 2000/13/EC is the main piece of legislation that harmonises national law across Member States on the labelling of food stuffs and prohibits the attribution to any food product the ability to prevent, treat or cure a human disease, or reference to such properties. A Corrigenda of 20 March 2000 to the Directive contains labelling provisions for specific products such as beef and chocolate. Furthermore, this Directive prohibits the attribution to any foodstuff of the property of preventing, treating or curing a human disease, or reference to such properties to Directive 2000/13/EC.
In November 2001 the Directive 2000/13/EC was amended by Directive 2001/101/EC which, for the purposes of labelling, sets out a definition of meat when used as an ingredient in foodstuffs. A further revision in November 2003, Directive 2003/89/EC requires all ingredients to be listed on the food label and makes sure that alcoholic drinks indicate allergens on their labels. Previously, it was not a requirement to list ingredients if they made up less than 20 % of the final food product. The new Directive creates a list of ingredients that may cause allergies or intolerances which must be identified on the label.
However, the Directive has a transitional period which gives the food industry the opportunity to submit scientific justification for ingredients or substances that are derived from allergens that may not be a risk for people with allergies. Under these circumstances, there could be a provisional labelling exemption. To help implement this process, the Commission has provided guidelines and a Directive 2005/26/EC was adopted in March 2005 establishing a list of substances that are provisionally exempted based on the opinion of the European Food Safety Authority on each request.
The challenge for European legislators is to ensure that the diverse needs and interests of consumers can be met. For example, a vegetarian, a person with a shellfish allergy, someone suffering from high blood pressure and a dieter all want to know different things about a particular food item. The food label has to deliver the relevant information and still be feasible for food producers, both large and small. Issues to be addressed include listing of ingredients, methods of production and process, allergens, nutrition composition, health and nutrition claims, origin of the product, safe use and preparation, GM derivatives, non pre-packed food, use of symbols and the presentation of subsidiary and mandatory information.
The difficulty in adding new requirements for labelling is that food packages may be quite small, often multi-lingual and sometimes multi-flavour. Food labels are already very information dense and feature a diverse range of information, both factual and promotional, that can be misleading and confusing for consumers.
A recent survey in 28 countries by the European Commission on consumer attitudes and expectations about labelling shows that consumers want greater clarity and better differentiation between objective information and marketing claims. Those questioned were concerned about labels and expressed dissatisfaction about information provided on products. Consumers also wanted labels to be standardised so that they could compare products.
Legislation on food labelling in Europe is both complex and unclear which undermines the goal of informing consumers and makes it difficult to apply and enforce the laws. The European Commission has involved stakeholders to evaluate the legislation with a view to modernising and streamlining the legal framework and a new proposal will probably be made in 2006.