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The evaluation assesses whether the rules on food information to consumers as regards to the mandatory origin labelling for pigs, sheep, goats and poultry as applied in Members States are effective, efficient, coherent, relevant and bring EU added value in view of its objectives, current needs and problems.
The assessment report features three options: The simple option (1) would be to label the origin as EU/third country according to where the animal was reared and/or slaughtered. The intermediate option (2) would feature labelling of Member State or third country of both rearing and slaughter. The last option (3) mirrors the labelling scheme already in force for beef for more than 10 years.
Option 2 appears to be the most suitable of the three, providing consumers with meaningful information while at the same time not creating disproportionate burdens for all the actors concerned. The pig sector would see an approximately 1.15% increase of the wholesale price. The extra cost was found to be mainly transmitted to consumers (90%) thus the meat price would increase. Trade flows would be affected marginally. As a result of higher prices, the EU citizens would consume less and thus more would need to be exported for the products in surplus (pig and poultry meat) and less sheep meat would be imported.
Background
A mandatory label on meat packaging that informs about the place of rearing and slaughtering was adopted by the European Commission in December of 2013 (Regulation 1337/2013). It lays down rules regarding the indication of the country of origin or place of provenance for fresh, chilled and frozen meat of swine, sheep, goats and poultry, which entered into force on 1 April 2015.
November 12, 2020/ European Commission/ European Union.
https://ec.europa.eu/
