Government Response

The Government responded to this petition on Tuesday 30th June 2020

Many foods made in this country are labelled as British either voluntarily or through regulation.

Government has no intention of weakening the existing rules and is committed to helping consumers better identify high quality British food.

The existing requirements to provide origin labelling on food will not change in the UK at the end of the Transition Period. Origin labelling is needed on foods where the consumer would be misled by the label if the origin of the food were not included. In addition, origin labelling is compulsory for beef, veal, lamb, mutton, pork, goat and poultry meat and most fruit and vegetables. Additional new rules for labelling of the ‘country of origin of primary ingredients’ were introduced on the 1st of April 2020. These rules require that labels inform consumers if the country or place of origin of the primary ingredient of a food product is different to that of the origin stated, or implied, for the product as a whole. Many foods are labelled voluntarily with their origin and this must follow the fundamental principle that information provided to the consumer must not mislead, must enable consumers to make informed decisions and must enable the safe use of food (by the provision of use by dates, for example).

In addition to this, voluntary assurance schemes help provide UK consumers and businesses with information about the food they buy. Schemes such as Red Tractor use the Union Flag to indicate to consumers the provenance of their UK assured foods as do other assurance schemes and food businesses.

The UK Government is setting up new domestic Geographical Indication (GI) schemes on 1st January 2021. These schemes will provide protection for products which have qualities or characteristics that are attributable to a specific geographical origin or a traditional method of production.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs