meat

New EU rules on country of origin labelling for meat other than beef came into effect today.

Under the new rules, all pre-packed fresh, chilled and frozen meat from sheep, goats, pigs and poultry on sale in the EU must be labelled with details on where the animal was reared and slaughtered.

Unlike country-of-origin labelling on beef, which has been mandatory since 2002, there is no requirement for the label to state where the animal was born.

The Commission said that imposing a requirement for place of birth labelling would have been “costly and disproportionate”, with most consumers more concerned with where the animals were reared than where they were born.

The rules do not apply to processed meats or meat preparations, although the Commission is currently discussing a proposal to extend country-of-origin labelling to those products.

The Commission said it has also commissioned an external study on mandatory origin labelling for unprocessed meats other than beef, pigs, poultry, sheep and goats, such as rabbit and horsemeat.

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