Today, the AGRI Committee approved, by unanimity, its draft opinion on the revision of the ‘Breakfast Directives’. The opinion voted upon improves the Commission’s proposal for honey, juices, and jams in terms of traceability, quality, and transparency towards consumers. Copa and Cogeca call on the ENVI Committee to mirror the AGRI Committee’s compromise amendments.
The revision of four of the so-called Breakfast Directives is strategic for iconic European productions namely honey, fruit juices, jams/marmalades/jellies, and preserved milk. The compromise amendments voted today take the Commission’s proposal presented on 21 April 2023 a step further.
Taking note of the 2023 DG Health, JRC, and OLAF reports on honey adulteration, MEPs introduced much-needed changes aimed at protecting the honey sector from adulteration and fraud. European beekeepers welcome the inclusion in the final text of the mandatory indication of percentages of each origin and in descending order in honey blends. Indicating on the label the percentage share for all individual countries (both Member States and third countries) will increase transparency for consumers while significantly contributing to combating unfair competition from adulteration of imported honey products. The inclusion of a blockchain traceability system to trace back the entire honey chain, as well as the deletion of filtered honey and the indication in the label of unheated honey are other welcome proposals. These improvements are the first step in the right direction for achieving the objective of 0% adulteration in the honey value chain by 2030 as proposed by Copa and Cogeca.
MEPs maintained the Commission’s proposal to increase the minimum fruit content in jams and jellies. Raising the minimum quantity of fruit to be used in the manufacture of jams and jellies will increase consumers’ fruit intake while supporting the fruit sector.
Regarding fruit juices, the use of statements will increase awareness among consumers of the fact that fruit juices contain only naturally occurring sugars present in the fruit(s) and thereby eliminate any unconscious bias that would have led consumers to prefer products with a nutritional claim.
We look forward to the vote in the ENVI Committee due to take place on the 29th of November and hope that MEPs will take note of the improvements introduced in AGRI.
Fonte: Copa Cogeca
