The fight continues...

This week in Brussels I called together a group of health and consumer NGOs who are supportive of using multiple colour coding on food so consumers can ascertain and compare at a glance the nutritional content of food. I convened the meeting following the disappointing vote by MEPs in June.

In attendance were representatives from Which?, the British Heart Foundation, the British Medical Association, Cancer Research UK, BEUC (the European consumers' organisation), the European Heart Network, and a German NGO called Foodwatch as well as Nessa Childers, an Irish MEP colleague of mine and representatives from other MEPs' offices.

We had a very fruitful discussion, and the consensus was that we would continue with a joint campaign to promote colour coding, to lobby Member States in the Council and ensure that traffic lights can at the very least continue to be used throughout Europe as part of national schemes in the current draft legislation on food labelling, as exemplified by the UK's own traffic light scheme.

We also agreed to work together with a view to launching a Citizen's Initiative, once the rules are in place, to gather 1 million signatures from EU citizens, to pressure the Commission to come forward with a separate legislative proposal and build up support and visibility for this important issue.

Watch this space...

A mixed bag of food labelling

Now the dust has settled, last week's plenary vote, as I blogged beforehand might well be described as a mixed bag.

We lost our headline campaign, which was to get mandatory traffic light labelling on processed convenience foods and unfortunately the provision for voluntary national schemes such as the FSA's traffic light scheme was also deleted, with the support of Tory MEPs, which means, somewhat bizarrely, that Tory MEPs voted to reduce their own government's scope to implement its own front of pack labelling scheme, preferring a harmonised EU scheme of percentage GDAs (Guideline Daily Amounts).

Their basis for opposition to my proposals for colour coding appeared to be wholly based on the arguments industry put forward and on industry-supported research.

The first criticism made by Tory MEPs was that the colours were too simplistic so they preferred GDAs. Despite all the information I had sent to them in advance of the vote, they must have failed to spot that the amendments on the table provided for a combination of GDAs and traffic lights - colour-coded GDAs - so rather than simplistic, it actually provided more information than GDAs alone.

The other argument used was that traffic lights would favour diet coca-cola over apple juice on sugar, given the high levels of natural sugars in apple juice and the artificial sweeteners used in diet Coke. If they had bothered to look at my proposal, again they would have seen that fruit juices would not be covered by my amendments.

Colour coding aside, we did win a major (but narrow) victory on mandatory country of origin labelling, with a majority of MEPs voting to ensure honest and transparent food labelling. My amendments as adopted would see food producers obliged to label all meat, poultry, dairy products and other single-ingredient products with the country of origin, and also the meat, poultry and fish contained in processed or multi-ingredient products.

We also secured front of pack labelling for the key nutrients such as calories, salt, sugar and fats and fought off industry-backed attempts reduce consumer protection from misleading advertising of health and nutrition claims.

Tense vote

In just a few hours time MEPs will be voting here in Strasbourg on amendments to the new regulation on food labelling and things are quite tense. The votes are shaping up to be very close on two key point: traffic light labels for sugar, salt and fats and mandatory country of origin labelling so that it is clear where our food comes from.

The industry lobby has been intense and unrelenting throughout - and it has caught the attention of much of the media over the last few days, including the Independent, Daily Mail and BBC with headlines such as "Food firms spend millions in push to kill traffic light labelling" and "Food companies in massive lobby to block colour coded warnings".

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1286804/Food-firms-spend-millions-push-kill-traffic-light-labelling-identify-unhealthy-products.html?ITO=1490


http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/food-companies-in-massive-lobby-to-block-colourcoded-warnings-2000523.html