The National Pig Association (NPA) has voiced concerns with proposed food labelling changes, stating that they could have “significant implications” for the pork supply chain.
Environment Secretary Steve Barclay today (Tuesday, March 12) launched a consultation on the plans, which aim to ensure greater transparency around the origin of food and methods of production for consumers.
The consultation looks at how to improve country of origin labelling for certain goods, including how and where this information is displayed and what products should be included.
Before the consultation document had been published, NPA chief executive Lizzie Wilson said the NPA would need to see the full details of what is being proposed to see if the plans were “workable”.
“The principle of greater transparency and clearer labelling to differentiate high quality British product from inferior imports, of course, has merit,” she said.
“The questions are going to be around how this is delivered in practice, without adding unnecessary costs.”
In his plans, Barclay also set out proposals to require ‘method of production’ labelling on pork, chicken and eggs.
These include a mandatory five-tier label for both domestic and imported products which would differentiate between those that fall below, meet and exceed baseline UK animal welfare regulations.
Wilson said the NPA was a part of a “widespread coalition of industry bodies that opposed these plans” when they were previously raised by Defra.
“It has to be meaningful for consumers and it could be very difficult to do this reliably for pigs, given that different parts of the carcase can go into many different markets, while there are real concerns over the cost and complexity that the requirement would add into the supply chain,” she said.
“We also need to avoid falling into the trap of claiming one system is automatically better than another – method of production is not an indication of good or poor welfare. We would also question how this could be reliably applied to imports.”
