Farm kitemark used on foreign food
4 July 2000
Farm kitemark used on foreign food
By FWi staff
THE British Farm Standard logo, which is supposed to promote British food, is being used on imported produce, Farmers Weekly can reveal.
Supermarkets have mistakenly labelled a variety of foreign food with the logo, despite assurances that it would only be used on British farm produce.
The highest-profile case involves New Zealand lamb labelled as British and displayed on the Sainsburys stand at the Royal Show on Monday (3 July).
A number of similar cases have also been reported involving Britains other supermarkets, which have mistakenly used the logo on imported products.
It was found on Spanish lettuce in a Somerfield store, on Israeli strawberries sold by Morrisons, and on Spanish broccoli displayed by another major retailer.
John Pratt, chairman of the Farmers For Action pressure group, spotted the wrongly-labelled lamb. Misuse of the logo undermined its credibility, he said.
“I find an incident like this at a premier agricultural show quite unacceptable because it is doing nothing to support British farmers,” he added.
“It is diabolical. I just want to see things labelled properly. We are not being loyal to our own people when New Zealand lamb is sold while the industry is in crisis.”
The National Farmers Union, which helped developed the logo, attempted to play down the incident, describing it as nothing more than a “storm in a teacup”.
NFU deputy president Richard Watson Jones said the incident was simply a matter of somebody putting the wrong label on the wrong product.
A spokesman for Sainsburys emphasised the retailers support for the logo and insisted that it would not be knowingly used again on imported produce.
- Kitemarked food will be British, FWi, 11 May, 2000
- Foreign food eligible for UK kitemark, FWi, 17 March, 2000