5.5.2022
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
C 184/25 Wednesday 20 October 2021
91.
Considers that further development and sustainable innovation in the field of plant protein production and alternative sources of protein in the EU, such as insects or algae, is a way of effectively addressing many of the environmental and climate challenges that EU agriculture is facing, as well as preventing deforestation, biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation in countries outside the EU and reducing Europe’s current dependence regarding its supply of plant protein; calls on the Commission to build upon its report on the development of plant proteins in the European Union (COM(2018)0757) and to present an EU protein transition strategy covering the demand and the supply side to support and boost the sustainable production of protein crops, including local supplies of feedstuffs and food production, enhancing EU self-sufficiency and lowering global environmental and climate impacts; underlines the importance of reducing dependence on the importation of protein crops from overseas;
92.
Recalls its call to extend the EU generic risk assessment across the legislation to prevent the exposure of consumers to hazardous substances in food;
93.
Recalls that nutrient profiles, which are long overdue, remain pertinent and necessary to meet the objectives of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims made on foods (72); welcomes the announcement of a legislative proposal to establish nutrient profiles; points out that many food products, including some marketed towards children, continue to use health and nutrition claims despite them having high levels of nutrients of concern; stresses that a robust set of nutrient profiles must be developed to prohibit the use of nutrition and health claims on foods high in fats, sugars and/or salt; calls for particular attention to be given to food for children and other special purpose foods;
94.
Recognises that front-of-pack nutritional labels have been identified by international public health bodies such as the World Health Organization as a key tool to help consumers make more informed, more balanced and healthier food choices; stresses that front-of-pack nutrition labelling system, which is consistent with and complementary to dietary guidelines, should help consumers to make healthier food choices by providing them with comprehensible information on the food they consume; calls on the Commission to ensure that a mandatory and harmonised EU front-of-pack nutritional label is developed based on robust, independent scientific evidence and demonstrated consumer understanding, with open access for all market operators including small and medium-sized operators, taking into account the additional burden to food operators and unions; stresses furthermore that to facilitate comparison across products, it should include an interpretive element to provide transparent, comparable and harmonised product information and be based on uniform reference amounts; calls on the Commission to duly take into account the specific characteristics of single ingredient products and products under European quality schemes (PDO, PGI, GI etc.), particularly the invariability of their composition, while stressing that any considerations regarding potential exemptions should be based on scientific reasoning; calls for the establishment of a digital system for the provision of additional voluntary information for food products (EU4healthyfood), and suggests that this information could be provided in a digital manner via a QR code and be retrieved easily by the consumer;
95.
Notes that healthy products, including food, may contain natural or synthetic ingredients which have different impacts on the environment and the health of consumers; Calls for the introduction of mandatory labelling schemes for healthy products, indicating whether an ingredient is of synthetic origin when obtained by a chemical synthesis, especially in cases where natural equivalents exist;
96.
Calls on the Commission to make an assessment of changes in consumer behaviour, such as in the online purchasing of food products;
97.
Welcomes the Commission’s initiative aimed at improving origin labelling and its consideration of extending it to a wider range of products; reiterates its call for mandatory origin labelling; stresses that this should be comprehensive and harmonised and cover all food products and should cover catering facilities, restaurants and retail and be fully verifiable and traceable and not undermine the proper functioning of the internal market; emphasises that the food information regulation (73) needs to be revised with a focus on milk and meat as ingredients; calls on the Commission to rectify the current practice whereby products whose primary ingredients are not locally or regionally sourced can be marketed as such if the origin of these non-local primary ingredients is indicated in the small print, and to make the origin of the primary
(72) (73)
OJ L 404, 30.12.2006, p. 9.
Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2011 on the provision of food information to consumers (OJ L 304, 22.11.2011, p. 18).