Nov
14
Galician mussel. (Photo: Paco Lafuente)
New label ‘will diminish’ canned products, entrepreneurs warn
SPAIN
Thursday, November 15, 2012, 03:40 (GMT + 9)
Several cannery executives based in Galicia argue that changing the labelling of packages and allowing the references to the country or region of origin to be omitted implies the “degradation” of all the production in the autonomous region.
A few months ago, the European Parliament (EP) decided to omit the requirement to include the origin of the product and the trade name of the species on the canned product labels.
The manufacturing sector entrepreneurs insist on that fact that excluding references to the Galician product origin in cans, for example in mussel ones, implies “offering free way to competitors, no matter how low their quality is,” the newspaper Faro de Vigo reported.
“This action can only benefit and interest the largest canneries, which prefer to buy cheaper products in Chile or in other countries, although they may be worse, and then sell them here and in Europe, competing with the Galician mussel, which has higher quality,” they add.
The Mussel Regulatory Council of Galicia has a similar view on this situation.
For this entity, these reflections are related to what is considered “more concerning issues than specific episodes of biotoxins.”
According to Rosa Lafuente, manager of Conservas Paco Lafuente/Conservera Gallega, based in Vilanova de Arousa, the initial objective of the proposed legislative changes is “to omit references to the place of origin on the cans.”
“And that, of course, not only harms us, who work exclusively with the highest quality and with a product covered by the protected Designation of Origin (PDO) Galician Mussel, but it also hurts the whole community and the whole production,” she stated.
“The next step will be to allow everything to be brought from other countries, that is to say, that the can comes with the product from elsewhere in the world to simply receive the case in Galicia, and that just enables the product to be sold as if it were from here, regardless of the quality it has,” Lafuente added.
The executive warned that “just because of the name, products can be sold the first and the second time, but if the cans having the name Galicia include worse products coming from other countries, what will happen is that the third time, the Consumers will no longer want such canned products.”
And that will end up contributing for the product in question “not to be sold and Galicia will pay the consequences,” Conservera Gallega manager stated.
From the Council they also decry the action taken by the EP because they claim that “this lack of information not only compromises the viability of the mussel sector, but also that of the seafood from Galicia in general, while harming the consumers´ interests.”
Regarding the Galician mussel, the entity recalled that for years they have been affected by unfair competition from foreign products that are mislabeled and that “deceptively try to take advantage of the prestige and reputation acquired by the brand Mexillón de Galicia by using unclear references to the origin.”
Therefore, it has been insisted that the indication of origin and of the species on the label is “one of the efficient ways to promote differentiation” as to the seafood from the Galician estuaries.
Related article:
– New EU labelling requirements outrage mussel producers
By Analia Murias
editorial@fis.com
www.fis.com
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