Under current European Union (EU) labelling regulations the country shown on a food label refers to the place the product was last processed, not where it was produced.

A labelling loophole allows grocery chains to mark products as “Produced in the UK” if the last significant change to it took place in Britain, even if the main ingredient comes from abroad.

So supermarkets for instance can sell sausages “made in Britain” using cheap Danish pork and legitimately label them as British sausages. They can legally label chicken sandwiches as “Produced in the UK”, even if the chicken has come from intensive poultry sheds in Thailand, because they have placed the chicken between bread.

Clear and transparent labelling on all meat products sold in the UK is essential so consumers can make informed choices and have confidence in the products they are buying. British farmers are subject to some of the highest animal welfare and production standards in the world, not just within the EU.

Using the Pig industry as an example:

More than 90 percent of UK pig meat is produced under the auspices of farm assurance schemes, e.g. Assured British Pigs. These schemes have defined written welfare standards which are audited by independent annual inspection and quarterly visits from a veterinary surgeon. 70 percent of pigs imported to the UK did not meet UK minimum legal standards.

The UK has a higher cost of production than most countries within the EU. Research shows the cost of production was 12 percent higher in UK than the EU, and more than 60 percent higher than in North and South America. World Trade Organisation rules are generally interpreted as precluding any trade restrictions on the basis of animal welfare standards, placing the EU and UK in particular at a significant competitive disadvantage!

Food retailers could play a major role in ensuring all food sold in the UK meets UK production standards. Because food is not labelled according to its welfare provenance, then concerned consumers are not able to exercise their choice and may, unwittingly, purchase products that do not meet their requirements.

Below are some major food retailers labelling cons:

ASDA - 6 mini pork pies - These Pork pies were produced in the UK, however the meat is from anywhere inside the EU.

Sainsbury’s ‘Taste the Difference’ - Spaghetti Bolognese - From the front of the label the consumer is led to believe the beef in the Bolognese is from Scotland… However the fine print on the back says that it is also produced using Italian, German and French pork.

Tesco ‘Finest’ - British Butter Roast Turkey - This butter roast turkey is marked as British and even has a British flag on the label… However turn over and you find out that the turkey in the product may have been slaughtered in the Republic of Ireland.

Tesco - Lincolnshire 6 Sausage Rolls - These sausages rolls are clearly marketed as coming from Lincolnshire… But the meat can come from anywhere inside the EU – that’s 27 possible countries.

Russia, the world’s third-largest wheat exporter, announced a ban on exports of grain for the rest of the year because of wildfires that started last month and continue to lay waste to farmland. The wheat embargo had an immediate impact on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the hub of wheat futures, and sent the price soaring on indexes across the world.

Wheat prices have fluctuated significantly over the last 10 years. In 2000 the price was around £60 per tonne, it spiked in 2004 to £115 per tonne and feel back to around £60. In 2007 it rocketed to nearly £200 per tonne and then dipped to around the £100 per tonne. The Russian embargo has created another spike to £150 per tonne.

These price rises are obviously great news for UK farmers if they are able to take advantage. The overall price fluctuations however, make for very difficult business planning from year to year. These are the ups and downs of being tied to global commodity prices.

The US Department of Agriculture estimates that Russia will produce 25%-30% less wheat this year than in 2009. But does this mean that the price of bread has to go up?

If a loaf of bread costs £1, probably 10p-15p of that is actually wheat. The majority of the cost goes into packaging, the marketing and the distribution costs. The biggest cost is the profit margin the supermarkets make. As you can imagine, when the supermarkets put their prices up under the auspices of raw material rises, these prices never go back down when the raw material does.

In 2007, the supermarkets hiked up the price of a loaf when wheat went up to £200 a tonne. Funnily enough, the price of bread never came down in 2008 when the wheat price fell back to £100!

BBC - Russia ban on grain export begins

BBC - No export limit for Ukraine grain

Does the Red Tractor symbol actually mean the food was produced in the UK? Is there any particular reason you need a magnifying glass to see the logo?

These may seem rather silly questions but every time I see ‘Danish’ bacon in the supermarket, I wonder how they manage to get their brand name / logo to fill half the packaging. When you do eventually find a pack of British bacon, probably equating to about 5% of the shelf space, the logo seems laughable in comparison.

Since its launch in 2000 by the then Prime Minister, the concept seems to have been well adopted. Is it then just the typical ‘British thing’ of not wanting to shout about our fantastic produce and let then competition muscle in? Our animal welfare standards and crop husbandry are world class in comparison to many countries we import from (naming no names…), so why aren’t we shouting louder.

I would very much like to hear any ones views about this topic and all the other various British food logos we seem to use.