Baroness McIntosh of Pickering – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness McIntosh of Pickering on 2016-02-23.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to introduce country of origin labels for dairy products in (1) the UK, and (2) across the EU; and if so, when.

Lord Gardiner of Kimble

The Government supports the industry voluntary agreement for labelling origin of food, which has resulted in clear and honest origin labelling in the vast majority of dairy products sold in UK shops.

We have also been pushing for improved origin labelling for dairy products in Europe, including a proper consideration of mandatory origin labelling for lightly processed dairy products such as butter, cheese and cream. Many producers and retailers in the UK provide this information voluntarily, reflecting consumer demand and the acceptable cost of such schemes, but consumers can feel misled where this information is not available.

New Implementing Acts on origin labelling of the main ingredients of food where these are different from the place of production of the food itself have recently been proposed by the Commission and the UK will engage with the Commission to ensure that these measures are effective.