Brussels proposes new labelling rule for all beef in EU

THE European Commission yesterday proposed new regulations to standardise the labelling of beef throughout the EU.

In an effort to restore consumer confidence in the wave of the BSE crisis the Commission is suggesting a voluntary system, supervised in each country, to provide customers with details of the origins of each piece of meal they eat.

The Commission is also seeking to speed up the already agreed introduction of an EU wide compulsory "passport" system for cattle.

This would detail the age, sex and mother of an animal, as well as all farms on which it had been kept and the date and place of slaughter. Farmers are also 19 be required to keep complete animal registers, and the national authorities to install comprehensive databases of animals and their movements.

Although voluntary, the labelling system is likely to be widely adopted, the Commission believes, with consumers certain to show a marked preference for beef whose origins they know.

The draft regulation contains a list of the information a label can, though need not necessarily, contain: the nationality and sex of the animal from which the meat was taken, its farm of origin and all subsequent locations where at least 80 per cent of fattening look place, the method of fattening, information on slaughtering, boning and culling, and any other information the labeller wishes to include, subject to it having been agreed by the national authority.

To give the system credibility all labellers of meal will have to submit, for their country's approval, details of measures they are taking to ensure the accuracy of such information and the control mechanisms in place at each stage of production and sale.

Both proposed regulations will go to the next meeting of farm ministers. If agreed they will lake effect from next January 1st.