NEW LEGISLATION ON VOLUNTARY INDICATION OF THE ORIGIN OF PRIMARY INGREDIENT(S) IN FOOD
On the 16th of April, the European Commission’s Implementing Regulation on “Provision of Voluntary
Indication of the Origin or Place of Provenance of Foods in the EU” got the backing of a qualified majority
of Member States within the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed - Section: "General
food law" (comitology examination procedure). The newly adopted Regulation gives food business
operators a two-year period to take the necessary measures to make their products compliant with the
legislation, as it will become applicable on the 1st of April 2020.
In February 2018, SAFE had provided its feedback on the act proposed by the Commission, underlining that
the implementing regulation does not solve several issues worthy of concern.
The most concerning issues pointed out by SAFE included:
1. The “voluntary” character of the Country-of-Origin Labels
Although the Commission maintains that “voluntary origin labelling is the best approach to follow at EU
level”, European consumers often demanded to know the origin of a food – to support local producers, or
for ethical and environmental concerns. Even MEPs supported the idea that “the indication of the country
of origin or the place of provenance shall be mandatory”. SAFE strongly supports a mandatory Country-of-
Origin Label and believes that withholding the primary ingredient(s)’ provenience misleads consumers.
2. Art. 1: “EU and non-EU”
SAFE believes that the exact meaning and implications of the definitions is unclear, as “EU and non-EU” is a
questionable definition if it does not spell out the proportions of the EU and non-EU parts of the food
product. Furthermore, in the case of the “Non-EU” label, SAFE believes that a “non-EU” label that does
consider all non-EU provenances as the same would be too vague.
3. Art. 2 (b), partial and misleading information
To ensure that the origin information allows consumers to make enlightened choices, SAFE cannot accept
art. 2 (b) of the Implementing Regulation as it allows for partial and misleading information: indeed,
leaving to producers the possibility to declare that an ingredient “is not from the country identified as
Country-of-Origin of the food”, without specifying its actual origin, will only create more confusion for
consumers.
THE ITALIAN CASE
Since a decision taken through a Ministerial Decree of 9 December 2016, Italian dairy products must show
their ingredients’ origin. In May 2017, Italy formally asked the Commission to allow a CoOL on pasta and
rice produced in Italy to show the raw materials’ origin. According to the Italian government, those rules
were to be applied on an experimental basis, allowing Italy to overcome some legal difficulties of the EU’s
food labelling law set out in Regulation (EU) No. 1169/2011 (FIC Regulation). The Commission reserved its
decision for three months and Member States discussed it in a consultative Committee in June 2017. On 20
July, Italy repealed the notification and published a decree ordering that all pasta and rice packages sold in
Italy had to include CoOL showing where the products were grown, criticising the EU for not introducing
the measure in the internal market. Despite the Commission’s concerns, and although several warning
repeating that Italian laws on CoOL were not compliant with EU law, Italy adopted two further decrees on
mandatory CoOL for rice and durum wheat used in pasta, making it clear that it wished to adopt CoOL for
other foods and asking to modify rules at EU level.
Following Member States’ favourable vote on the Commission’s implementing Regulation on indication of
the origin or place of provenance of foods in the framework of the comitology examination procedure, the
Regulation is now adopted and will become applicable on the 1st of April 2020. The act lays down the rules
for Article 26(3) of the FIC Regulation, clarifying what manufacturers can write on food packaging when the
country of origin of the primary ingredient differs from the product as a whole. In a statement
accompanying the act, the Commission made express reference to Italy and its national rules on CoOL,
recalling that the Italian legal acts linked the application of their provisions to the adoption of the
Commission’s Implementing Regulation. Hence, the Commission underlined that “it can be expected that
the Implementing Act will provide for harmonised rules applicable also in Italy”, therefore reducing “the
need for further resort to national provisions regulating origin indication”.