ENVI Recommends New Food Labeling Legislation

The European Parliament’s Environment, Public Health and Food Safety
Committee (ENVI) has reportedly amended draft legislation “to ensure that
labels are legible, do not mislead, and provide the information that consumers
need to make choices.” According to an April 19, 2011, press release, ENVI
members have passed draft legislation “that aims to modernize, simplify and clarify” food labels by requiring them to include “mandatory nutritional information, inter alia on artificial trans fats and the country of provenance.”

Under the new rules, meat products would also bear additional labeling to
indicate “where the animal was born, reared and slaughtered,” whether the
animal was “slaughtered without stunning (in accordance with certain religious
traditions),” and whether a product is “formed meat” containing various
meat parts. The rules would also forbid labels from misleading consumers
about replaced ingredients and require foods containing aspartame to be
labeled “Contains aspartame (a source of phenylalanine; might be unsuitable
for pregnant women).”

EVNI evidently approved these proposals “with 57 votes in favour, 4 against
and 1 abstention, giving rapporteur Renate Sommer (EPP, DE) a strong
mandate to enter into negotiations to achieve a second-reading agreement
with Council ahead of Parliament’s plenary vote in July.” But the report has
since drawn attention for its provisions dealing with “ritually slaughtered
meat,” which one European diplomat has criticized as “too sensitive a social
issue to be dealt with as an add on to food labeling rules.” As reported in
an April 20, 2011, Telegraph article, religious freedom laws currently permit
slaughter without stunning, although the practice is generally banned under
European animal welfare rules—a tension that has raised questions among
member states and other constituents about whether the proposed labeling
apparatus is best suited to convey this information to the public. “We are
very keen on clear labeling. But let’s label it all. Don’t pick on us,” said Shimon
Cohen of Shechita UK, a group that seeks to educate consumers about Jewish
food handling laws. “When you are in a supermarket, fine, let’s have a label
saying the meat has been killed without stunning, but let’s also have a label
saying this animal has been gassed or electrocuted before being killed.”