New food labelling rules intend to make it easier for European shoppers to know what exactly what they are eating.
Damien from France asks what these new EU rules will mean?
Renate Sommer is a German MEP for the centre-right European People’s Party.
She replies: “The consumer should know more about the food he, or she, buys and that’s the reason why we want to put much more information on the packages in a legible way – to give the consumer the chance to make informed choices.
“We created exact rules for the legibility of the mandatory labelling and then we will make additions to the ingredients list that will remain mandatory of course.
“We will have, in a tabular form, a list of the most important nutrients, always per 100 grammes or 100 millilitres, so that we can compare the products directly in the supermarket.
“We will have a country of origin labelling for meat such as pork, poultry, sheep and goats.
“We have it already since 2000 for beef and this is a big step forward, and we’ll have it as well in some years time for meat, (when it is) an ingredient in processed food.
“We will have a clear labelling of so-called ‘imitated food’ on the front of the pack for formed meat and for formed fish so that the consumer can see what he or she buys.
“There will be also very, very clear labelling for example of allergens: inside the ingredients list, they will be highlighted so they can be seen on the first view so that someone who has (allergy) problems doesn’t need hours in the supermarket to study all the ingredients list.”