Clear origin and properties for honey and jam, MEPs approve “breakfast directive”

Bruxelles – Rusks and jam, milk and honey, fruit juice. What to eat for breakfast? Even finding an answer to this question early in the morning may not be easy. If you then want to answer what you eat, the origin and properties of what you put in your stomach as soon as you wake up, the morning task can be even more arduous because all too often “sensitive” information is not always easy to find or simple to understand. For all this, the European Parliament is reworking the 2001 directive on the trade in food products used for the first meal of the day. The aim is a more transparent label, with a clear indication of “made in”, more completeness on sugar content, and the fight against counterfeiting.

The go-ahead of the Parliament (522 votes in favour, 13 against, and 65 abstentions) reflects the vote already had in the Environment Committee (73 yes, 2 no, 10 abstentions) on the so-called “breakfast directive”, where a large majority had emerged. Thus, for honey, jam (at least 20 percent citrus fruit content), and marmalade (at least 35 percent fruit content) there will be an obligation to clearly state the origin of the raw material on the front label. When there is more than 75 percent non-EU content, all countries must be listed in descending order. Derogations are provided for small beekeepers with less than 150 hives.  Changes in the quantities of jam are also envisaged: the Parliament calls for increasing the minimum portion from 350 grams to 450 grams per kilo of final product.

It doesn’t end there. The new rules intend to provide for the labelling of fruit juices as “contains only natural sugars”. In order to meet the growing demand for low-sugar products, fruit juices whose naturally occurring sugars have been eliminated can be labelled as “low-sugar fruit juice”.

Furthermore, new techniques that eliminate naturally occurring sugars in fruit juices, jams, jellies, or milk should not lead to the use of sweeteners to compensate for the effect of sugar reduction on the taste, texture, and quality of the final product. Finally, the labels of sugar-reduced food products should not contain claims about positive properties, such as health benefits.

Salvatore De Meo (Fi), chairman of the Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs Committee, is satisfied. “This regulation is favourable to the Italian agri-food market,” he stressed. “For honey, we have obtained the recognition of our request on the origin of Member States and non-European countries. This is crucial to ensure protection for producers, and in this way, the consumer can make responsible and objective purchases.” Now the last word is up to the negotiations with the EU Council. The European Parliament meanwhile tries to redesign the Europeans’ breakfast.

Paolo De Castro and Camilla Laureti, PD members of the EU Parliament, emphasise in a note that “compared to the text approved in the Agriculture Commission a few weeks ago, we have succeeded in strengthening the transparency commitments towards European consumers, and extending the origin labelling requirements also to jams and fruit juices.” The two MEPs explain that “every package or jar of honey, juice, and jam will have to show on the label, next to the commercial name of the product, the country of origin where the raw material was harvested or cultivated, including sugar”. After the new Regulation on Geographical Indications, the two dem parliamentarians concluded, “We want to make available to our farmers and producers a further tool to protect and enhance their products”.

Coldiretti rejoices. “It is the result of our long battle for transparent consumer information,” stressed Ettore Prandini, president of the organisation, at the end of the vote. But above all, a measure against anti-competitive practices in a Europe besieged by imports of “low-cost fruit products for industrial processing into juices and jams from abroad, where the same criteria in terms of respect for the environment, labour, and food safety are often not respected.”