Foodlaw-Reading
Dr David Jukes, The University of Reading, UK
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Commission consultation, 19 January 2021
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Commission consultation - Inception Impact Assessment: Agricultural products – revision of EU marketing standards A copy of this document is available on this site (click on image) |
The consultation closes on 16 February 2021. For more details and to comment, see the Commission page: Agricultural products – revision of EU marketing standards. The following is the 'Context' from the start of the document:
Marketing standards are obligatory rules or optional reserved terms establishing the quality of products that are marketed to consumers. They rely on technical product specifications to define uniform trade characteristics. With regard to agricultural products, this covers freshness or size classification, presentation, labelling, packaging etc., but product specifications may also cover process and production methods. Marketing standards set minimum quality requirements for products that are traded and sold to consumers and they specify the characteristics of products that are sold using specific terms (e.g. ‘free range’ for poultry products).
Marketing standards help facilitate the functioning of the internal market, keep food of unsatisfactory quality off the market, provide relevant information to consumers, and ensure a level playing field for competing products. Not all agricultural products are covered by EU marketing standards, and those products that are covered but do not comply with the minimum requirements can still be marketed to businesses, e.g. for further processing.
The Farm to Fork Strategy envisages a revision of marketing standards to provide for the uptake and supply of sustainable agricultural products. However, it also mentions a series of other actions that are meant to increase sustainability aspects of the food supply chain or to address other related issues. Any revision of marketing standards will have to be done in a way that complements these other actions and focus on the relative strength of what marketing standards can achieve.
In particular, the Farm to Fork Strategy contains actions concerning (1) a proposal for a legislative framework for sustainable food systems, (2) a revision of the animal welfare legislation, (3) the consideration of options for animal welfare labelling, (4) the introduction of harmonised mandatory front-of-pack nutrition labelling, (5) the harmonisation of voluntary green claims and the creation of a sustainable labelling framework, (6) the extension of mandatory origin or provenance indications to certain products, (7) the exploration of new ways to provide information to consumers through other means, (8) the promotion of healthier and more sustainable diets, (9) the reduction of food loss and waste, and (10) improved coordination to tackle food fraud. Moreover, (11) DG MARE is currently carrying out a review of marketing standards for fishery and aquaculture products.
According to the recent ‘Evaluation of Marketing Standards’, current legislation on EU marketing standards has been effective in establishing a standardised and satisfactory quality of agricultural products, while also being useful for stakeholders. However, there is some room for improvement in terms of addressing new needs of stakeholders in the food supply chain.
Note that the document also makes reference to the five ‘Breakfast Directives’:
It also mentions:
