Misleading food packaging: where is it going?
On 7 November, the NVWA (enforcer), VWS (legislator), the food industry FNLI, the Consumers' Association and lawyers held talks at the Annual Conference on Food Safety and Integrity. The entire food industry was watching. As a lawyer, I spoke to Inge Stoelhorst of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport in a panel. Later Yvonne Huigen (NVWA) and Marloes Kneppers (FNLI) joined the discussion.
The central question: how is the misleading labelling and naming of food dealt with? Has anything changed there? The answer is yes! In the past, the vision was: the consumer who is really interested can read on the back of the ingredients declaration what - and especially how much - the product contains. Forest mushroom soup with 0.01% chanterelle? That was not misleading: the consumer can still see it. But that's outdated. Consumers need more protection. Since the Teekanne judgment of the European Court of Justice, we know that a prominent image of, for example, a raspberry on the front of packaging can mislead the consumer, even if the declaration of ingredients is complete. This has brought about major changes in food-producing countries: which ones?
Tougher enforcement by the NVWA
Many proceedings before the Advertising Code Committee (RCC) about misleading packaging
Foodwatch and the Consumers' Association that are on a high horse.
Consumers that are now being patronized, or are they just protected?
In the meantime, many producers have switched to using the term 'taste': no more vanilla pudding, but pudding with vanilla taste.
For the discussion, I had collected a selection of examples from decisions, which I discussed with the various stakeholders. A possible outcome as a handle for the future could be: a joint working group with stakeholders that will draw up Guidelines. For example: transparent packaging is less likely to be misleading. Or: the green/yellow/pink color for a taste indication is allowed and does not necessarily mean that there is real pistachio, vanilla or strawberry in it. Curious to see if these guidelines are going to be made!
Ebba Hoogenraad