Drafted in May 2017, with updates for 2020, 2021 and 2025
5 December 2020:
“Italy will not pursue European negotiations for a text of conclusions on food labelling at the EU Council of Agriculture Ministers on 15 December”. Minister Teresa Bellanova had announced this in recent days to her Portuguese counterpart during a bilateral meeting.
And today she has done so: Food labels, Italy abandons EU negotiations. Italy opposes and may be forced to veto the Nutriscore.
But let’s take a step back, going back to 2017 : There is a ‘ghost’ roaming the European Union: the traffic light labelling of food (Nutriscore).
This is a system, put into practice by Great Britain, France and Germany, which could penalise our best products such as grana padano, olive oil and raw ham.
The system is ‘sponsored’ by food multinationals such as Mondelez (formerly Kraft), Pepsico, Unilever, Mars and Nestlé.
If you read what the experts of Il Fatto Alimentare say about it , you will easily understand how this labelling gives a distorted view of the contributions of the food consumed with regard to Great Britain, while it is much more possibilistic about the French Nutri-Score (the article is written by four hands).
Coldiretti and Federalimentare (Confindustria) have allied themselves to oppose its adoption. While France is adopting it.
On how citizens can influence companies’ policies read: How consumers could change the fate of certain sectors: the cases of Barilla, De Cecco (wheat), Casino, Carrefour with JBS (meat) and Ferrero (hazelnuts)
On 9 December 2020, the batterylabel, an invention very ‘close to Coldiretti and Federalimentare’ waspublished in the Official Gazette. A ridiculous proposal by companies and the Ministry to divert the discourse
Read also
- De Castro: ‘Ten billion from the EU for agriculture. And the Nutriscore system would be a tragedy for Italian agribusiness’.
- The appeal of 270 scientists for the adoption ‘as soon as possible’ of the Nutriscore.
- Packaging and labels: the pitfalls for the consumer
- The NutrInform Battery, Italy’s answer to Nutri- food labelling is a total political and operational failure (announced)
- Too much confusion on food labels according to the European Court of Auditors
- On the relationship between Esselunga and Nestlé read here.
- On the methods used by multinationals to influence politics and public opinion read also Monsanto Coca-Cola and Exxon: three cases of perfect lobbying?
As far as I know Coldiretti would not want a label with the indication ‘produced in Italy’,like the one below (from 1999).
Too bad, because it follows the principles already in use of the PGI (to simplify: made in Italy with non-Italian raw materials).
