June 21, 2010

 

EU backs COOL for fish

 

 

The EU on Wednesday (June 16) adopted the draft legislation mandating country-of-origin labelling (COOL) for seafood and other meats and nutrition labelling on all food packaging.

 

The legislation is designed to enable consumers to make "healthy, well-informed" food choices, while limiting the administrative and financial burden on food companies.

 

The final vote in Parliament was 559 in favour, 54 against and 32 abstentions. The legislation is only a draft and is likely to return to Parliament to be tweaked. Once the legislation is enacted, food companies will have three years to abide by the rules and smaller food companies with fewer than 100 employees and less than EUR5 million in annual turnover, will have five years to comply.

 

However, the Parliament rejected the proposed "traffic light system," which would have required certain processed foods to bear red, yellow and green tags to indicate high, medium or low levels of salt, sugar and fat.

 

According to MEP Diane Dodds of Northern Ireland, 60% of the fish consumed is imported into the EU and in most cases not reared under the same strict environmental and regulatory regimes.

Video >

Follow Us

FacebookTwitterLinkedIn