The European Commission wants to make it mandatory to list the countries of origin on the labels of jars of honey, it announced on Friday. A “first step” considered very insufficient by beekeepers.
The Brussels text, submitted to the Member States and MEPs for consultation before its entry into force, does not require specifying what each country of origin represents in the composition of a mixture of honey, as claimed by consumer associations and agricultural organizations.
A proposal to “help consumers”
The EU executive’s proposal aims to toughen “marketing standards” for many agri-food categories, including honey, to “help consumers make more informed decisions.”
For honey, but also nuts, dried fruit, ripe bananas or even processed fruits and vegetables (packaged salads, etc.), the country or countries of origin must be mentioned.
On the other hand, the order in which these countries will appear is left “up to the conditioner’s choice” without restriction to classify them in order of importance, and there will be no obligation to detail the composition of the assembled honeys of various origins. .
“Full Opacity”
A Commission investigation, published on 23 March, showed that out of 320 recently checked samples of imported honey, around 46% were strongly suspected of breaching EU rules, in particular by adding sugar syrups intended for reduce the cost of returns.
74% of honey originating in China was deemed suspect, as was almost all honey imported from Turkey and all honey from the UK, where it was collected from various origins.
“For any traceability measure that tends to better define where honey comes from, it’s total opacity. With a list of countries, we do what we want to the limit”, for example mixing Chinese honey with limited amounts of European honeys, he argued.
If determining exact percentages is complicated, “a relatively light traceability system is possible (…) Conditioners know very well what they put into their honeys,” he was upset.
Source: BFM TV
