Euro-MPs fall in with labelling campaign

The vote yesterday was an important step forward for the campaign backed by UK farmers' organisations and the Yorkshire Post, although there is still wrangling over the details and the food industry will get three years to comply when the policy is confirmed – five years for small enterprises.

The European Parliament spent most of yesterday considering which proposals for more information on food labels to allow through for further discussion.

It rejected the idea of compulsory "traffic light" symbols, summing up the content of sugar, fat, salt and artificial additives, and settled for a requirement for "nutritional information and guideline daily amounts". Ministerial committees will discuss the "traffic lights" idea further.

The country-of-origin proposal is over its biggest hurdle. Country of origin labelling is already compulsory for some foods and the parliament supported extending this to all meat, poultry and dairy products. It also voted for the country of origin to be stated for the main ingredients in processed food.

Meat labels should indicate where the animal was born, reared and slaughtered – in the light of objections from the UK, for example, about Danish bacon being called British because it was sliced here.