What's in a label?

Dr Oliver Moore (Ollie) is an author, academic, journalist, blogger and all round organic expert. In this column, Ollie explores the minefield that is food labelling, exposing those that may sound reassuring to consumers but are effectively meaningless, but also noting that some terms, including organic, are very well regulated.

What's in a label? Well, that really depends upon what is being promoted. There  are so many flaky terms out there that the casual consumer can be forgiven for being cynical, confused or apathetic.

Technically, food labels are not supposed to mislead the consumer. And yet, authentic, original, farm fresh, farmhouse, country fresh, homemade, wholesome  – these terms all festoon packaging whilst convoluting the consumer. They do all have dictionary definitions, and also a common sense meaning. However on a food label, or on a chalk board at a Sunday carvery, they literally mean nothing.

Farm fresh eggs? Well that simply means that the eggs are most likely from a factory farm, i.e. a caged battery system, with thousands of birds in very confined conditions. Homemade soup in a hotel on a Sunday?: this soup is not necessarily made in a home – it  may be made in the hotel, or indeed it may just be warmed  up in the hotel.

'90% fat free' means 10% fat….

'Flavour' on a label is a word that describes a similarity: in other words, 'strawberry flavour' means 'tastes like strawberries'.  It does not mean, or, technically, does not even indicate 'contains strawberries'. Strawberry flavoured means 'taste like strawberries because there are strawberries in it'. Even then, 'flavoured' as a word does not define quantity: strawberry flavoured might have very little strawberries. Really, only looking closely at the ingredients list will inform as to the amount.

Country of origin is also unfortunately a source of confusion. I spoke to Dr. Jeff Moon of the Consumer Protection Unit in the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. Specifically, I asked Jeff about  Irish chicken:

“In simple terms, if you say something comes from somewhere it has to be from there. But where there is a lot of processing going on here then you would be able to say it’s a product of Ireland. Take for example Chicken Kiev. Chicken can be imported into here, and processed. A sauce can be put into it, breadcrumbs put onto it, it can be cooked and presented in a way that’s ready to eat; that can then be considered an Irish product. If there is an indication that the actual chicken was Irish, and it wasn’t, that would be misleading. Basically it’s to do with how much processing and transformation the product goes through”.

In the UK, their Food Standards Agency issued guidance on the terms Fresh, Natural, Pure, Traditional, Original, Authentic, Home made and Farmhouse. In a study, they tested 220 food products on sale for compliance with their guidelines.

According to the UK FSA  “of the 220 samples examined, 88 (40%) were considered by the participating public analysts not to comply with the guidance. The high level of non-compliance encountered in the survey is a clear indication that these labelling terms continue to be used in a way that is potentially misleading to consumers.” There are many misleading terms: farmhouse, at 75% is the most misleading.

Is the consumer being helped or hindered by national origin logos here in Ireland? Guaranteed Irish, a very familiar, near iconic embalm of Ireland, really only means guaranteed 50% Irish.

As the Guaranteed Irish organisation itself states, “any product or service for which at least 50% of the value added took place in Ireland can qualify. For services, the award criterion is that the company is majority Irish owned and creating employment in Ireland.”

Love Irish Food is a significant improvement: “over 80% of the brand is manufactured in the Republic Of Ireland...they must use ingredients were possible from ROI”, according to Love Irish Food. “In cases where Ireland simply does not grow the ingredients (tea leaves or cocoa beans), the member brand must be primarily derived from Irish manufacturing processes.”

Thankfully, there are some markers which are well protected.

'Free range', and 'traditional free range' are protected by legislation, for both poultry and eggs. The term 'fresh' is in some cases protected. I asked the FSAI about it. They told me that fresh is “defined in relation to 'fresh meat' and 'fresh fishery products' in Regulation (EC) No 853/2004 laying down specific hygiene rules for food of animal origin. It is also referred to in the marketing standards for both eggs and poultrymeat.”

The other main significant exception, one that survives any amount of smoke and mirrors and spin,  is organic. Organic is in actual fact a very well marshaled word. It is protected in legislation, while inspectors are employed by the state to check for cases of fraud.

In Ireland the Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Food approves certain bodies to inspect and certify operators (i.e. farmers and food businesses) as organic: IOFGA (the Irish Organic Farmers and Growers Association)  and the Organic Trust certify the vast majority of Irish produced food and drinks. Their logos are on most of the products they certify.  The UK's Soil Association logo is also very familiar in Ireland.

Organic farmers and food businesses are inspected, and can be inspected in spot checks. The words certified organic (or very close and approved equivalent) must be used, along with one or more of the following codes:

E-ORG-O1*; IRL-OIB2-EU / IE-ORG-O2* (IOFGA); IRL-OIB3-EU / IE-ORG-03* (Organic Trust)

Those with asterisks (i.e. *) are being introduced from July 2010. Most organic products, along with the log of their organic certification body, carry their own specific license number.

While some operators are exempt from labelling their foods, for example fresh fruit and veg sellers at a farmers market – these operators have to prominently display their organic license. And yes, inspectors actually go to farmers' markets to make sure this is happening.

The words 'certified organic' on the labels of foods then, means that the product is produced to a very high and well regulated standard of environmental care: there are severe restrictions and in the vast majority of cases outright bans on the various biocides (pesticides, herbicides), synthetic fertilizers and the incredible array of agri-industrial inputs (additives, colourings etc) available to the conventional agri-food sector.

Occasionally fraudsters are caught claiming their produce is organic when it is not. This has happened in other countries, and on at least one significant occasion in Ireland. Whilst the media usually whip up a storm about this and the untrustworthiness of organic as a result, in fact these rare occurrences prove the opposite: By occasionally catching fraudsters, the regulatory system proves that a worthwhile attempt is being made to investigate organic foods and drinks. Were no fraudsters ever to be found, many would question the efforts made to catch fraudsters.

Soon, a new EU organic logo will appear on all organic food and drink products produced in the EU, alongside the certification body logos.

30 years ago, Anthropologist Claude Fischler coined the term gastro-anomie, or gastroanomy, to explain the confusion and isolation caused by the many and multifarious mixed signals the agri-food system sends consumers, about what, when, where and how much to eat. The situation is even more muddy and muddled now. However, amongst the food meanings melee, and despite understandable consumer wariness, organic as a word on a food label has meaning.