A rural campaigning group is urging the European Commission to extend country-of-origin labelling to processed meat products, following the introduction of new legislation.
Europe-wide labelling rules will come into effect in April, forcing food producers to disclose the country of origin of all fresh meat products – but it didn’t originally cover processed foods such as sausages, bacon or ready meals. This would allow foreign-reared meat to be labelled under the country in which it was processed, The Countryside Alliance claimed.
But yesterday, the European parliament voted for the rules to be indiscriminately applied to all meat products, regardless of whether they were processed or fresh. The alliance is pressing the European Commission to adopt the legislation.
Sarah Lee, head of policy for the Countryside Alliance, said: “Since the horsemeat scandal, consumers are taking much more notice about where the meat they eat originates. We want labelling that shows where the animal was reared and slaughtered for all meat, including that where meat is an ingredient.
“Currently sausages made in Britain from Danish pork can be legitimately labelled as British because the meat has been processed in the UK. We believe food marked as British must come from British farmers and producers.
“We will write to Defra [the department of environment, food and rural affairs], urging them to press the European Commission to make country of origin labelling mandatory for all meat.”
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