Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of the transparency in food labelling for British (a) food and (b) drink.

The UK maintains high standards on the information that is provided on food labels, whether that be mandatory or voluntary, so that consumers can have confidence in the food that they buy.

All food and drink sold on the UK market must comply with food labelling rules. The fundamental principle of food labelling rules is that information provided to the consumer must not mislead and must enable the safe use of food.

Country of origin information is required for fresh and frozen meat of beef cattle, sheep, goat, pigs and poultry, as well as uncut fresh fruit and vegetables, honey, olive oil, wine and some fish products. Buying food locally and supporting their local food economy is important to many consumers and where any label indicates that a food is produced locally, this must not be misleading to a consumer.

A public consultation on fairer food labelling was undertaken between March and May 2024 by the previous Government. This sought views on proposals to improve and extend current mandatory method of production labelling. We are now carefully considering all responses before deciding on next steps and will publish a response to this consultation in due course.