Is this even legal(EU), or is it just a stupid idea?

meditraitor · 12-10-2010 11:08AM #1

A thought came to me last night (sober for once), obviously there are EU regulations around taxing imported food at a different rate or forcing a buy local produce (as in buy Irish) agenda on a national scale so can we not use the old environmental stick to do it.

I will explain, Food Miles

How hard would it be to introduce a food mile labeling system for all fruit and veg sold in Ireland?
For example if they are produced in Ireland they have a White label with less than 300miles clearly stamped on the label,

Then we could have a yellow label with less than 1,000 miles clearly stated on it.

And lastly we could have a red label with more than 1,000 miles stated clearly on it.

The purpose is twofold but we don’t have to tell the EU(be honest) about the second.

The first is obviously to give the general public an easy method of distinguishing between locally grown and foreign produced food, this will increase the opportunity and ease of buying locally grown produce. The environmental impact of buying local as opposed to imported is obvious and more people are happy to do this! The farmer market phenomenon of the last few years is a clear indicator of this.

The second reason is a way to impose an environmental tax on imported goods, for example.
0% food miles tax on white label food.
5% food miles tax on Yellow labeled food.
10% food miles tax on red labeled food.

This could have the effect of making it economical to grow certain imported foods in Ireland and therefore creating jobs and opportunities within the irish farming world and it would also increase the tax intake on imported foods which could go to pay the PS pension (only half joking).

The obvious problem with this would be a knock-on with prices, especially Imported but is there more value in it from an environmental standpoint or financially.

All thoughts on this are welcome,

Cavehill Red · 12-10-2010 11:12AM

I like the labelling idea.
I don't like the taxing idea.

planetX · 12-10-2010 12:53PM

If only the tax could be used to make Irish produce a bit cheaper....
I wanted to buy tomatoes today, the Irish grown were twice the price of the value ones from Morocco. I didn't want to buy tomatoes from Morocco, so I didn't get any

It's frustrating when you can't afford your principles.

djpbarry · 12-10-2010 01:57PM

meditraitor wrote: »

For example if they are produced in Ireland they have a White label with less than 300miles clearly stamped on the label,

Then we could have a yellow label with less than 1,000 miles clearly stated on it.

And lastly we could have a red label with more than 1,000 miles stated clearly on it.

But the country of origin is already printed on foods (although I’m not sure if this is a legal requirement).

meditraitor wrote: »

The environmental impact of buying local as opposed to imported is obvious...

Is it? Are you sure? Is home-grown always better than imported? Would it not depend on how the home-grown food is produced versus the imported? A better approach might be a label indicating how much energy was required to get the food in question from source to shelf (including cultivation).

meditraitor wrote: »

The obvious problem with this would be a knock-on with prices....

That’s going to be a big problem, especially in the current climate. Personally, I’d be wary of increasing agricultural protectionism within the EU. We already pay substantial subsidies to farmers in this country - can we afford to pay more?

meditraitor · 12-10-2010 02:03PM

djpbarry wrote: »

But the country of origin is already printed on foods (although I’m not sure if this is a legal requirement).
Is it? Are you sure? Is home-grown always better than imported? Would it not depend on how the home-grown food is produced versus the imported? A better approach might be a label indicating how much energy was required to get the food in question from source to shelf (including cultivation).
That’s going to be a big problem, especially in the current climate. Personally, I’d be wary of increasing agricultural protectionism within the EU. We already pay substantial subsidies to farmers in this country - can we afford to pay more?

Great point, but can we keep my label system:o Keep it simple I say.....

Cookie_Monster · 12-10-2010 03:38PM

will carbon taxing not have this effect anyway, food travelling more will have to pay more Carbon tax and hence will be built into the cost.

Corsendonk · 12-10-2010 04:57PM

meditraitor wrote: »

A thought came to me last night (sober for once), obviously there are EU regulations around taxing imported food at a different rate or forcing a buy local produce (as in buy Irish) agenda on a national scale so can we not use the old environmental stick to do it.

I will explain, Food Miles

How hard would it be to introduce a food mile labeling system for all fruit and veg sold in Ireland?
For example if they are produced in Ireland they have a White label with less than 300miles clearly stamped on the label,

Then we could have a yellow label with less than 1,000 miles clearly stated on it.

And lastly we could have a red label with more than 1,000 miles stated clearly on it.

The purpose is twofold but we don’t have to tell the EU(be honest) about the second.

The first is obviously to give the general public an easy method of distinguishing between locally grown and foreign produced food, this will increase the opportunity and ease of buying locally grown produce. The environmental impact of buying local as opposed to imported is obvious and more people are happy to do this! The farmer market phenomenon of the last few years is a clear indicator of this.

The second reason is a way to impose an environmental tax on imported goods, for example.
0% food miles tax on white label food.
5% food miles tax on Yellow labeled food.
10% food miles tax on red labeled food.

This could have the effect of making it economical to grow certain imported foods in Ireland and therefore creating jobs and opportunities within the irish farming world and it would also increase the tax intake on imported foods which could go to pay the PS pension (only half joking).

The obvious problem with this would be a knock-on with prices, especially Imported but is there more value in it from an environmental standpoint or financially.

All thoughts on this are welcome,

Wow great more jobs!! So if I import a pallet of apples from Austria I have to pay someone to individually label each apple if I am selling them loose to the public?

Also isnt the carbon foot prints of certain imports lower than the Irish produced product such as Moroccan Tomatoes verses Irish heated tomatoes. I know the food programme on C4 followed Morrocan tomatoes supply train to the UK consumer and found the carbon foot print lower than UK grown.

How would your white label work considering Dublin is 265kms from Manchester so technically UK produce could also have your white label? Does that not confuse the customer then.

Corsendonk · 12-10-2010 05:30PM

meditraitor wrote: »

Great point, but can we keep my label system:o Keep it simple I say.....

Ohh you system is for produce(fruit and Veg) only. You do know the EU has a system in place called displaying the country of origin? It comes under the same directive that talks about curve of bananas. By law you must have the country of origin on the label if a prepack or in clear line of sight for produce sold loose. Something that farmers markets, certain fruit and veg shops and supermarkets seem to forget at times. Then its up to the consumer to have a working knowledge of geography. Your idea just adds additional cost and increases input and so carbon foot print and packaging.

meditraitor · 12-10-2010 06:30PM

Corsendonk wrote: »

Wow great more jobs!! So if I import a pallet of apples from Austria I have to pay someone to individually label each apple if I am selling them loose to the public?

Easy to fix, the low carbon footprint fruit and veg are displayed together in a white label area of the shop.

Scale is what its about,

Corsendonk wrote: »

Also isnt the carbon foot prints of certain imports lower than the Irish produced product such as Moroccan Tomatoes verses Irish heated tomatoes. I know the food programme on C4 followed Morrocan tomatoes supply train to the UK consumer and found the carbon foot print lower than UK grown.

See above, as the thread moves and more clever fellows like yourself contribute then we can either develop or dismiss the idea and as it stands the carbon footprint idea is moving rather than the air miles.

Corsendonk wrote: »

How would your white label work considering Dublin is 265kms from Manchester so technically UK produce could also have your white label? Does that not confuse the customer then.

We have moved past the original posted air miles idea, now we are on carbon footprint..... Is there any hope for it?

Do you think that a carbon footprint label system is plausible, in the shop as opposed to individually. Is it feasible.

meditraitor · 12-10-2010 06:34PM

Corsendonk wrote: »

Ohh you system is for produce(fruit and Veg) only. You do know the EU has a system in place called displaying the country of origin? It comes under the same directive that talks about curve of bananas. By law you must have the country of origin on the label if a prepack or in clear line of sight for produce sold loose. Something that farmers markets, certain fruit and veg shops and supermarkets seem to forget at times. Then its up to the consumer to have a working knowledge of geography. Your idea just adds additional cost and increases input and so carbon foot print and packaging.

Just trying to simplify it, the country of origin doesn't do enough. The majority of shoppers just want to purchase food and studying the packs is only for nerds. Make it easy.... Clear visible distinctions with an emphasis on carbon footprint...

Am I making any sense

2 waterbottles on my desk · 12-10-2010 06:46PM

This idea has been tried before within the EU community (circa the late 1970's early 1980's) and didn't get very far -

Two cases spring to mind - Commission v Ireland (Buy Irish advert case) and Commission v UK.

In Commission v UK - UK tried to introduce a labeling law which meant that products would have to note country of origin - so that British shoppers could determine when they where buying domestic product over imported product.
UK tried to argue that they where doing so to for consumer protection and not to encourage the purchase of domestic goods. Commission argued that the UK was trying to introduce a barrier to the free market of the EU.

ECJ sided with EU commission and UK had to drop law.

This seems to be what you are suggesting re food miles. Where your concern is not in fact the environment but encouraging the purchase of domestic goods - can't see the idea flying.

The other case Commission v Ireland (Buy Irish Advert case) shows how strict the EU can be - that is why I think the new advert drive is love Irish foods (one more makes all the difference) is being so careful in how they are operating.

Two Waterbottles on my desk

Corsendonk · 12-10-2010 07:02PM

meditraitor wrote: »

Just trying to simplify it, the country of origin doesn't do enough. The majority of shoppers just want to purchase food and studying the packs is only for nerds. Make it easy.... Clear visible distinctions with an emphasis on carbon footprint...

Am I making any sense

Not really, I think you have a loose understanding of the topic. Your assuming that any produce produced locally will have a lower carbon foot print which is wrong as carbon foot prints on Irish products change throughtout the year. Your trying to make another system to simplify something that isn't simple. Its much easier to work out the carbon foot print of washing powder than produce because at least there raw materials are constants.

Air freight is the main carbon foot print issue and large retailers from the UK labelled up air freight produce with a special blue label with a plane on it to indicate to the customers. Apart from exotics and baby veg most produce is shipped by boat or road due to high costs. Cut flowers are actually the real issue with air freight so you might be better encoraging people not to buy them.

Corsendonk · 12-10-2010 07:13PM

meditraitor wrote: »

Do you think that a carbon footprint label system is plausible, in the shop as opposed to individually. Is it feasible.

No! Its totally off the wall. As I said in my last post you may want to read up on logistics of the produce industry. At times of year 50% of your delivery could be tomatoes lse from Holland and the remaining 50% could be tomatoes from the Canary Islands. So do you put tomatoes in two separate areas in the store? Also you get daily fresh deliveries of produce so Country of Origin changes day by day so your system totally messes up stock rotation systems. Remember stores are already limited on space so your zonal system for loose product doesn't make practical sense.

meditraitor · 12-10-2010 10:10PM

Corsendonk wrote: »

No! Its totally off the wall. As I said in my last post you may want to read up on logistics of the produce industry. At times of year 50% of your delivery could be tomatoes lse from Holland and the remaining 50% could be tomatoes from the Canary Islands. So do you put tomatoes in two separate areas in the store? Also you get daily fresh deliveries of produce so Country of Origin changes day by day so your system totally messes up stock rotation systems. Remember stores are already limited on space so your zonal system for loose product doesn't make practical sense.

You obviously know very little of logistics and the current IT capabilities available to almost all shops.........

Its very very very simple to distinguish using even the most basic scanning equipment what stock should go where!

meditraitor · 12-10-2010 10:22PM

Corsendonk wrote: »

Not really, I think you have a loose understanding of the topic. Your assuming that any produce produced locally will have a lower carbon foot print which is wrong as carbon foot prints on Irish products change throughtout the year. Your trying to make another system to simplify something that isn't simple. Its much easier to work out the carbon foot print of washing powder than produce because at least there raw materials are constants.

Air freight is the main carbon foot print issue and large retailers from the UK labelled up air freight produce with a special blue label with a plane on it to indicate to the customers. Apart from exotics and baby veg most produce is shipped by boat or road due to high costs. Cut flowers are actually the real issue with air freight so you might be better encoraging people not to buy them.

So Carbon footprints are out the window? Ok what do you suggest to sublimely make the purchasing public buy food that has a smaller environmental impact?

Corsendonk · 13-10-2010 12:01AM

meditraitor wrote: »

You obviously know very little of logistics and the current IT capabilities available to almost all shops.........

Its very very very simple to distinguish using even the most basic scanning equipment what stock should go where!

Obviously you have experience of stock system in supermarkets? And the Logistics of the produce world?

Corsendonk · 13-10-2010 12:29AM

meditraitor wrote: »

So Carbon footprints are out the window? Ok what do you suggest to sublimely make the purchasing public buy food that has a smaller environmental impact?

Well your mistake was that you picked Produce as your area for carbon footprints. Produce as you know with your great knowledge of the Produce industry changes country of origin with the seasons so very hard to predict the carbon footprint, the variation can be quiet large. Lets take table grapes, you in any one year can source them from the USA, Chile, Spain, Greece, India, RSA, Egypt, Israel. So that means you have to have a carbon foot print model in place for each country of origin. Also here where your idea gets hard, green grape harvests are ahead of red grapes so what do you when you have a mixed pack of grapes with COO of Spain/Israel.

That is why with your knowledge of supermarkets you will know that the large multinational retailers are working on carbon footprints but they have started with grocery-household lines that the raw materials come from constant sources. But the problem they face is that there is very little space left on packaging for the carbon foot print logo and info and studies show that people shut off with all those symbols in front of them. How many people actually read the GDA panel on labels?

Here is a radical idea for you and the rest of the produce buying public! Try buying produce in season, so live with having asparagus 4 weeks of the year from Ireland or GB and don't buy Asparagus from Peru or Ecudor. If you desperately require Asparagus buy it in a tin. Avoid buying strawberries from the USA, do you really think a strawberry can last that long on a boat? All of the above are air freighted in.

You can bring in as many systems as you want but at the end of the day the decision rests with the consumer so wouldn't you be better educating the consumer rather than bringing in new labelling systems which add more food label grade packaging to the mix, cost and red tape or zonal areas in supermarkets were the customer is increasely confused as items move location more than normal.

Mahatma coat · 14-10-2010 06:56AM

People need to be encouragedto Grow their own Food, this will hve the efct of giving them an insight into how he food they eat is produced, the amount of time and effort that goes into making a Spud is something a lot of Modern Irish people are unaware of, so Telling them about Airmiles or Carbon footprints or Environmental susainability mean nothing to these people, Food comes from the Supermarket

ei.sdraob · 19-10-2010 09:00AM

why do all greenie ideas always involve more taxation?

Corsendonk · 20-10-2010 03:42PM

There is actually a EU labelling system inplace for the last few years that in one category allows you to label a product to ensure its origin, so black forest ham , northern irish lamb, armagh apples etc. France has nearly 200 odd product groups that applied for the label, Ireland has four......

freddyuk · 21-10-2010 06:44AM

We have the biggest greenhouse facility in Europe 2 miles up the road. It grows tomatoes and cucumbers year round in controlled environment using hydroponics. (Thanet Earth).
My daughter went off to buy tomatoes and cucumber the other day from local Asda and i noticed they were from Poland.:D

pumpkinsoup · 21-10-2010 10:50AM

djpbarry wrote: »

A better approach might be a label indicating how much energy was required to get the food in question from source to shelf (including cultivation).

Calculating energy used to get the product to the shelf isn't straightforward. Most carbon/ energy footprinting exercises look at production, transport, raw materials and possibly some sub-suppliers. But even if these include cultivation as you suggest they generally miss a huge amount of associated energy consumption. For instance the energy used to manufacture the tractor used by the farmer, the energy used by the workers in the tractor factory by driving to work every day, the energy used to manufacture the cars that the workers use to drive to the tractor factory, and so on. There are some interesting methodologies which I won't go into that can be used to assess this, but these are impractical at the level of individual goods.

A much easier and fairer alternative would be to apply a pigouvian tax directly to the energy source and apply it globally and equally according to resource scarcity or carbon content. So the total energy content would be reflected in the price of the good. Ultimately, consumer choices are determined primarily by price.

Is this even legal(EU), or is it just a stupid idea?

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