19 MARCH 2010
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 
MURRAY WELCOMES FOOD LABELLING MOVE
 
Dumfries MSP Elaine Murray welcomed moves by the European Parliament this week to introduce clearer food labelling.
 
Elaine Murray MSP said: "This is a very welcome development from the European Parliament’s Environment and Consumer Protection Committee and one that Labour MSPs have continually raised at Holyrood.
 
“People rightly want to be fully informed of where their food has come from. Making it easier for consumers to see where products on the shelf were produced will allow for more informed decisions.
 
“Consumers often want to be sure they’re buying Scottish and British meat, poultry and dairy products. This move from the European Parliament is a major step forward to ensuring consumers are able to see quickly and clearly where the food they are buying was produced.
 
“This will be good news for both Scottish shoppers and Scottish farmers alike.”

 
ENDS
 
CONTACT – ANDREW MACKENZIE 07769206856
 
NOTES TO EDITOR
 

1. NFUS News Release
 
CLEARER FOOD LABELLING ONE STEP CLOSER AFTER EU VOTE
 
NFU Scotland has praised the European Parliament’s Environment and Consumer Protection Committee for taking one step further in the fight for clearer labelling which would help customers know where the food they are buying was produced.
 
MEPs voted this morning in favour of an amendment to Renate Sommer MEP’s report ‘Food Information to Consumers’, which would require definitive information about the country of origin or place of provenance of the following foods: meat, poultry, dairy products, fresh fruit and vegetables, other single ingredient products, and for meat, poultry and fish when used as an ingredient in processed foods.
 
For meat and poultry, the country of origin or place of provenance may be given as a single place for animals only where the animals have been born, reared and slaughtered in the same country or place.  In other cases information on each of the different places of birth, rearing and slaughter should be given.
 
Following the amendment’s adoption in the Environment and Consumer Protection Committee, the report will be presented to the entire European Parliament at a plenary session in May or June this year. 
 
NFU Scotland’s President, Jim McLaren said:
 
“NFUS has been fighting a campaign for clearer country of origin labelling for many years now, and yet every day there are examples of consumers unable to see quickly and clearly where the food they are buying was produced.  Likewise, until this situation is resolved, European farmers, who produce our food to the strictest environmental and animal health requirements in the world, will continue to be undercut by imported goods which do not have to adhere to the same rigorous standards.  These substandard products can be labelled as British or Scottish simply because they have been processed here.
 
“Last month the Food Standards Agency (FSA) published the results of a survey which suggested that the importance of country of origin labelling to Scottish farmers is growing. Yet, only last week, the European Commission published details of its latest trip to Brazil, which confirmed the likelihood that Brazilian pigmeat, which has been produced using growth promoting substances which are banned in the EU, could be entering EU markets.
 
“It is encouraging that MEPs are seeing the sense in correcting this unjust anomaly in the rules and I hope very much that the entire European Parliament will vote in favour of the amendment when it comes before them later in the year.  In the meantime, NFU Scotland will continue to meet with MEPs to ensure that this is exactly what happens.”
 
Ends