EU Gives Go-ahead to Country of Origin Labelling for Meat

Following on from the European Commission working group paper on marketing of agricultural products earlier this month, the European Countries have now backed a move to use country of origin labelling on meat products.

The working group recommended that provenance and country of origin could be used as marketing tools to differentiate products, particularly those from countries outside the EU.

The concern is that developing countries, in particular, are gaining an unfair advantage in the promotion of their products globally.

The measure, if adopted, would even out the marketing field and allow state and EU funds to be used to market products because of their origin.

Now, the European states have agreed to implement country of origin labelling on meat products.

The proposals, which gained support from a qualified majority of Member States in the Standing Committee on Food Chain and Animal Health last week will give information to consumers about where the meat they buy comes from – a demand they have clearly expressed, according to the European Commission.

Consumers will be able to make informed choices taking into account the concept of "origin", "reared" and "slaughtered", each concept being clearly defined at EU level.

The proposal introduces a compulsory labelling system that establishes a link between a given meat and the animal it was obtained from.

However, the one area for debate and potential discrepancy is in the labelling of minced meat where there is a derogation.

Here the label rather than specifying a particular country can say simply “Reared in the EU” or “Reared in non-EU countries” or “Slaughtered in the EU” or “Slaughtered in non-EU countries”.

The European Commission says that this is because of the nature of production and that different origins can be mixed.

“Therefore the meat producer is allowed to indicate the Union character of the places of rearing and of slaughter or their provenance from third countries,” the Commission says.
“A mix of both could be labelled as “reared and slaughtered in the EU and non-EU countries”.