Regulation of the Marmalade Market

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 15th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (Dame Angela Eagle)]

I thank the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt) for securing this debate and providing an opportunity for me to outline the regulation of the marmalade market. As Paddington Bear wisely reminds us:

“A wise bear always keeps a marmalade sandwich in his hat in case of emergency.”

As hon. Members may notice, I do not have a hat, and I hope that we do not have an emergency. I certainly do not have a sandwich, so I hope that we will not get into any sticky situations, although I thought that we were getting into some spicy situations when I was listening to the hon. Lady’s speech.

After the flurry of media stories over Easter about marmalade, this is a topical debate, but I think Paddington himself would be mildly exasperated by all the marmalade nonsense that has been spread around in the papers. In response, I want to reassure Members of the House that absolutely nothing will be changing about the composition of marmalade. Despite misinformation that has now spread far and wide, there is no requirement for retailers or producers to change an orange marmalade label to a citrus marmalade label; in fact, the orange marmalade that is sold in the Tea Room is able to be exported, and will still be able to be exported once these changes come into effect in the European Union.

As the hon. Lady pointed out, marmalade is often already labelled as orange marmalade on UK supermarket shelves. This is in compliance with EU rules past and present, and many British manufacturers already meet international labelling standards voluntarily so that their products can be sold overseas. After our new sanitary and phytosanitary deal with the EU, we will simply support that trade by cutting unnecessary red tape with our largest market; we will not be subverting the meaning or composition of marmalade. I am sure the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) will welcome that news.

As the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills said, marmalade is a product steeped in tradition and loved by millions at the breakfast table. It delivers a perfect blend of sweet and tangy fruit preserve, made from the juice and peel of citrus fruits simmered with sugar and water. The well-known version is made from bitter orange, most commonly using Seville oranges, but other citrus fruits such as lemons and limes make an equally delightful change and are becoming more popular. While the marmalade we know today is a symbol of British breakfasts, its origins stem from Portugal, where—as the hon. Lady said—it was made from quince and known as marmelada. It was then imported into England in the 16th century from Mediterranean countries. Modern marmalade has existed since the 1700s, when, in Scotland, water was added to make it less solid. It was the people of Scotland who then made marmalade a breakfast item, and the rest of Britain soon followed. Interestingly, the word “marmalade” in the English language comes from the French, which came from the Portuguese word “marmelada”. As the hon. Lady pointed out, it started with the Greek “melimilon”, which means sweet apple. As is the case in many such circumstances, marmalade is more international than I suspect many people who are using it as a symbol of UK patriotism understand.

Our current domestic rules for marmalade are regulated by the Jam and Similar Products (England) Regulations 2003, which implemented the assimilated EU directive 2001/113/EC. Those rules help protect the quality and reputation of these important products and ensure that they meet consumer expectations. As the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills pointed out, our domestic rules lay down compositional standards for jam, jelly, marmalade and other similar products, meaning that marmalade and jelly marmalade must contain a minimum amount of citrus fruit—200 grams per kilogram of finished product—of which a set amount, 75 grams, must come from the endocarp. For those who do not know what the endocarp is, it is the segments and pulp of a citrus fruit. As the hon. Lady also pointed out, the soluble solids are also set at a minimum level of 60%. Very few other ingredients are permitted, and only in restricted amounts—for example, no food colours are allowed. I understand that the hon. Lady is very familiar with these regulations, because she was particularly active when changes to the minimum levels of sugar in jams were proposed by the UK in 2013. Food policy is devolved in the UK, but those standards are similarly accepted and set across all the devolved Governments.

I am pleased to say that our domestic UK market for marmalade is buoyant—it is worth £67 million. Our leading UK brand, Robertson’s, delivered £9 million in sales in the last year, and Mackays—the fastest-growing marmalade brand—is now the UK’s second largest and Scotland’s No. 1, with 19% of market share in Scotland and 7.6% across the UK. These successful brands are excellent examples of products already referencing “orange marmalade” in the name. Marmalade is synonymous with Paddington. In fact, it was reported in 2014 that marmalade sales soared following the release of the “Paddington” movie—the so-called Paddington effect.

As promised in our manifesto, this Government are focused on resetting our relations with the European Union and our closest trading partners. We have agreed with the EU to establish a common sanitary and phytosanitary area. When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs met the French Agriculture Minister, Annie Genevard, she said that

“our friendship is built on co-operation, on mutual benefit and on a shared understanding that our security and prosperity are bound together”.

Alongside the Windsor framework, the SPS agreement will make moving goods easier, cheaper and more predictable. That is not just between the UK and the EU, but within the UK, too, between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This is about more than trade statistics. Short, regulated, high-standard supply chains between trusted neighbours are the foundation of resilient food security. We expect the agreement to cover the breakfast rules, to which the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills referred in her contribution, including the jam and marmalade rules that I mentioned earlier.

Members may be aware that in 2024, the EU updated its rules on jams and made some minor changes to marmalade provisions. In the EU, consumers use both “jam” and “marmalade” to refer to jams made from non-citrus fruits. That is what they have always done. To accommodate different linguistic preferences, the EU adapted its rules to allow the equivalent to marmalade to be used for the term jam, where that was commonplace in a member state’s market. That is an option that a member state can choose to implement.

To avoid confusion with jam, the EU updated the reserved term of what we know here as marmalade to citrus marmalade, but producers can still simply name the flavour of the citrus fruit—orange marmalade or lemon and lime—and have consumers understand the precise nature of that product. The change will not apply to jelly marmalade, because there is no provision for jelly to be used interchangeably with marmalade, and so no confusion will arise. Aligning with the EU rules would mean that a small change to our marmalade description rules would have to be made, but as most jars already list the citrus used, the real-world impact would be minimal and consumers are unlikely to notice any difference.

[Tessa Munt]

I thank the Minister enormously for her explanation, and I am pleased that there is no intention to damage our trade in any way. We should boost trade of this well-known product with its unique qualities. My constituent would be particularly concerned about the level of sugar. I know I have asked some detailed questions—I have a copy of those questions for her, so if I may, I will hand those to her after this debate—but I am also particularly concerned about the proportion of sugar and those old Bristolian standards that were set over 100 years ago. I think the Minister’s view is the same.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

There have been no changes to the amount of sugar required for marmalade to be marmalade. If the hon. Member is hinting, as I think she might be, that various nefarious producers are masquerading non-marmalade as actual marmalade in the UK sense of the word, she should probably tell me, or at least tell local authority trading standards officers what is going on in the local area. They can then test to see what spreads or preserves are masquerading as marmalade. I am happy to write to the hon. Lady, if she wants to hand me those questions.

The Government are committed to supporting and protecting traditional British food products such as marmalade. We do that through meaningful regulation, which supports high food standards and covers marmalade. As I hope the hon. Lady knows, given the SPS deal, we will be aligning with some of the EU’s rules—as, indeed, we already do in respect of EU retained law—which ought to make it easier for consumers to know what they are buying.

Question put and agreed to.