Food Labels and Ethical Buying

Last week when out on a supermarket run, something happened that made me feel that people really do care once they have the information. My better half really loves fish, as do I. However because of issues of sustainability I am really careful about what I buy. Not just the species but how its caught and often the company involved.

Therefore when I was looking at the frozen fish in the supermarket, I was looking carefully at what was there. One of my fellow villagers made a comment along the lines of you wont find any bargains there. Then she said that a particular product from Youngs, the biggest fish processor in Britain, was reasonable. I explained that I would not buy from them as a few years ago they closed a factory in Scotland and started shipping the Scampi (also known as Dublin Bay Prawns or Langenstein's) to Thailand to be peeled then shipped back to the UK. Well her reaction was to put back what she was going to buy and she chose another brand.

A small victory, but once armed with information people will make ethical and environmental choices. While one person will not effect much change, yesterday (Saturday) I learnt that several of the senior shoppers have stopped buying the fish from this brand as well. How many are doing this I don't know, nor how long this will happen I can not tell either, but it shows that people don't like the way that multi national companies operate.

For older folks it must be difficult to realise that brands that you previously trusted are not the ethical or trusted company you thought them to be. Also it is actually quite hard work to source foods that are sustainably sourced or from ethical companies. However, part of this problem of misleading food labels may change. In European Parliament MEPs and the commission will be looking at the problem in the coming week.

While the food labelling rules stem from an European agreement and rules, in Britain, Europe (the EU) is frequently blamed for rules that appear silly or stupid. But the reality is that Britain was at the forefront of getting these rules implemented in the way that the food industry wanted.

The purpose of these rules was supposed to make it simpler, easier and for food producers to use ingredients from across the single market of the European Union without having have a complex country of origin label on the packet. However, food processors and the major retailers realised that they could abuse these rules and mislead the public.

The problem is most prevalent with meat sold in packages in the supermarkets, where meat reared in another country can be imported into Britain and just cutting the carcase into joints in a British processing plant entitles it to be labelled as British. Therefore people think they are buying British but in fact the meat comes from anywhere in the EU.

As frequently Britain has adopted higher welfare standards for the care of livestock, these (deliberately) misleadingly labelled packs fool the public into buying meat (or other products) that is not of the welfare standard or sustainability that the consumer thinks it is. Even I who is aware of the scams the supermarkets are playing, have been fooled on occasion.

In the supermarkets defence, they say that most of their customers buy based upon price and I can understand that and consumers do and should have that choice. However, if they (the supermarkets) were to label the products with the actual country of origin rather than the deliberately hiding this, would they sell as much?

That question is quite important as the supermarkets make a greater margin on meat and other products that are imported, especially where they can obfuscate the real country of origin.

As my regular reader will know, I have been talking about this issue for several years now, and while looking into the matter I had an informal chat with a trading standards officer. I was told that in many examples of misleading labels from all the major supermarkets could well be more than misleading but illegal. The problem is that even if the local authorities were to prosecute, the cost is prohibitive (about a quarter a million pounds) and the fines are so small that it would do little or nothing to stop the supermarkets from repeating the offence.

People do want to support British farming, and often think they are in the choices they make. The supermarkets know this and it is why they do this. Yet this issue is not just a question of allowing people to make ethical choices, deliberately misleading labels are a public health issue.

If there was a problem with meat becoming contaminated in some part of Europe so that it was unsafe to eat, unless people can look at the label and check the country of origin clearly, people could end up consuming that meat unknowingly. I could see this happening and it seriously damaging the business reputation of one or more of the supermarkets.

This is what I don't understand about the shareholders, who are the owners, of the major retailers. As unethical practices like this may increase profits in the short term, whenever these practices emerge they damage the profitability of the business. Add to this potential for a food scare as a result of this particular immorality and the investors, the shareholders, the owners could loose their money.

While it will take a while for the labelling rule to be changed to ensure that this deception ends, the majority of the supermarkets customers want the major retailers to start being honest with them. So why not give the customers what they want as you say you do?