In a ruling on 1 October, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) stated that the EU harmonised regulation for food labelling “does not preclude member states (MSs) from adopting measures providing for additional mandatory particulars regarding the origin or provenance.” However, the ECJ added that those national measures need to be justified on one or several grounds, including the protection of public health and prevention of food fraud. The adoption of mandatory origin labelling is possible only if there is a “proven link between certain qualities of the food concerned and their origin of provenance.” The onus is on MSs to provide evidence that the majority of consumers attach significant value to the provision of that information. The case had been brought to the ECJ by the French Government on the case lodged by the company Groupe Lactalis, which sought the annulment of a governmental decree requiring the labelling of the French, European or non-European origin of milk and milk used as an ingredient in pre-packaged foods.
Read the article here
