An unintended benefit of EU food legislation

This requires questions and answers from the European Commission published in January, guidance from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural affairs expected in the Summer, but recently off the block came the British Retail Consortium (BRC)/ Food and Drink Federation (FDF) guidance on allergen labelling.

Golly, what a read that has turned out to be! Suddenly you discover that the ingredients list will be a means of education worthy of a Biology O-level. The separate box containing a list of allergens is no longer permitted under the FIR and, instead, allergens must be highlighted in the ingredients list.

Where the name of the ingredient is not deemed sufficient, the category of allergen must be given. For example, anchovy must be followed by the highlighted word 'fish' , pecans by 'nuts' and so on. Thus people who did not know that salmon is not a nut or a mollusc will learn that it is a fish.

But some may be alarmed to see that a cereal bar's ingredients list smacks of a chemical experiment when the word 'sulphites' appears several times because it is the preservative in dried fruit. As for fruit cake, until I saw the example in the BRC/FDF guidance I did not realise that icing sugar and invert glucose syrup also contain sulphites.

A list of the most common allergens in Europe at the end of the guidance is no surprise, apart from the inclusion of Queensland nut that, when googled, turns out to be another name for Macadamia nut. How many people knew that? And that it came from a rainforest tree called Macadamia integrifolia, endemic to Queensland?

All in all, those who were alarmed at the banning of the separate allergen box have grounds to rejoice in the potential benefits for people who might become much better informed about foodstuffs. This can only be of benefit to everyone.

Also, considering the enormous amount of time, effort and cost that has gone into developing the best possible form of ingredient list, which we keep hearing no-one ever looks at, it seems nonsensical to separate out certain information to save people the bother of having to read the whole thing. This is probably not the reason why the Commission ruled out the separate box but could be an unintended positive consequence. Not a frequent occurrence where European legislation is concerned!