The European Commission will present, on February 22, its proposals for the labeling of poultry as a function of their farming mode.
by Laurence Girard
“No, the European Commission does not plan to eradicate quality labels, nor empty them of their meaning to deceive consumers.” It is in these terms that the European executive has decided to fly In the feathers of the French poultry sector, by publishing, Tuesday, February 14, an update to, according to her, thwart “false information”.
At the end of January, the National Interprofessional Association of Flesh Poultry (Anvol) had indeed sounded the alarm, asking the French government to defend a national specificity. “The European Commission is programming the end of the French farm poultry sector,” she said everything. Even believing the horizon of time at five or ten years.
She explained that, within the framework of the current revision of marketing standards, Brussels planned to change the rules concerning the labeling of the farming methods of the Gallinaceae. Above all, she claimed that the list of so far -authorized mentions was going to be called into question.
fear of “fanciful mentions”
These mentions, supposed to enlighten the consumer in his choice in front of a supermarket department, are now five, all supervised by a specifications: “Food with x % …”, “high at the Interior Extensive System “,” Outgoing outdoors “,” Farmer raised outdoors “and” Farmer raised in freedom “.
Outdoor and freedom represent only 20 % of chicken farms in France and are a French exception encompassing organic productions, Label Rouge or AOC. They thus represent the top of the basket of gastronomy, but also breeders on the crest line, already threatened by the containment measures of animals decreed following avian flu epizootics.
In this great revision of standards, the Anvol fears to see “multiplying fanciful mentions to qualify farming methods, without any framework or control”. A multiplication of designations that would blur consumer information. The Commission replied that after the discussions conducted since 2019, the proposal put on the table at the next meeting, Wednesday, February 22, will maintain the five mentions.
But it recognizes, however, that other mentions could be added to evoke animal welfare in building in building. By specifying that “no, labeling cannot be replaced by new misleading mentions such as” full wind poultry “,” chicken in the open air “,” chicken of fields “”, imagining for example “the poultry of full wind having access to a veranda with ventilation “.
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