A DISAGREEMENT on the importance of food labelling in the fight against obesity surfaced between small and large business groups at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on European Scrutiny yesterday.
The committee had invited a number of groups including employers’ organisation Ibec and the Irish Small and Medium Size Enterprise (Isme) organisation to give opinions on food information in a new EU labelling regime.
During the session, Isme chief executive Mark Fielding said there was no evidence to show that providing nutritional information on labels helped to defeat obesity.
However, Dr Louise Sullivan of Ibec, which represents large businesses, said that nutritional information was vital for consumers so they could make informed decisions on what they were eating.
The exchange came following submissions from both organisations and from the Department of Health, the Taste Council, the Food Safety Authority and the Irish Consumers’ Association.
The committee heard that Irish policy on the plan to set up a streamlined EU-wide labelling system giving more information to consumers was not yet decided, but should be ready by December.
Peter Ward, chairman of the Taste Council of Ireland, said his organisation had difficulties with the proposed regulations dealing with prepackaged foodstuffs.
He said if an apple tart in an individual wrapping was sold at a farmers’ market it could be deemed to be “prepackaged” under the new regulations.
“This would mean that an ingredients list, use-by date and a quantitative list of ingredients for an apple would have to be supplied,” he said.
“Is that not regulatory overkill? A local baker who may make a dozen tarts is demanded to label these tarts as if he were Mr Kipling producing hundreds of thousands of tarts,” he said.
He said national rules permitting flexibility on labelling at local/farmers’ markets should cover products like jams and marmalades.
Paul Kelly said Ibec did not support national identification labelling of food, as it would cause major difficulties for exporters.
Dermott Jewell of the Consumers’ Association of Ireland said nutritional information on packs, either using the Irish Guide Daily Allowance (GDA) or the UK’s Traffic Light system, should be mandatory.