Justin Tomlinson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Tomlinson on 2016-09-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to ensure that produce labelling does not suggest that produce not from British farms is from such farms.

George Eustice

The Food Information to Consumers Regulation (No 1169/2011) requires labelling to adhere to the principle that the consumer should not be misled. Article 26(2) of the Regulation imposes an obligation on food business operators to include an indication of the country of origin or place of provenance of a food if the failure to give that information might mislead an average consumer taking into account the label as a whole.

The food business operator is responsible for ensuring that a brand name it uses does not mislead the consumer. It is for the relevant enforcement authorities to assess whether they consider that the use of a brand name is ambiguous or confusing for the consumer on an individual case basis.