FFA call for countries of origin to be clear on food labelling
Some products do not seem to always show a clear country of origin on their labels, and now the Farmers for Action (FFA) is calling on shops and retailers to show the right information while they are labelling their products, especially for things like cheap imported cheese and other imported goods being sold as home brands at supermarkets.
The concern is that they may not be matching the standards according to British dairy farmers. Supermarkets are bringing cheese from all over the globe but consumers have no real way to know what the origin or production methods are for that particular good.
FFA chairman David Handley said that the cheese market is in trouble, and said some large UK supermarkets use cheap imported cheese as a way to drive down prices on British milk. He has a large number of concerns about labelling standards and hopes the government will do something about it.
Dairy farmers are expected by law to produce quality cheese, including low cell count levels, but it can be hard to know whether this is the case or not without good data. According to the FFA, month after month there is cheese coming from Australia, Ireland and other countries because UK sold cheese is not of the same standards.
Handley asked major retailers to see to this issue urgently. He said many farmers are angry and not ruling out demonstrations in order to bring their point to the attention of the public. Following the SOS Dairy protests from last year, milk companies increased their prices on milk across the board, but most cheese milk producers still get around 27p to 28p per litre, which is still below the costs of production, which places them in a lower position compared with imported cheese. If cheese is properly labelled, this would help on prices as well.
