Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to ensure that meat is labelled clearly to inform consumers about provenance from (a) animals reared and slaughtered (i) in the UK and (ii) abroad and (b) meat grown in a lab.

Country of Origin labelling is compulsory for prepacked unprocessed beef, veal, lamb, mutton, pork, goat and poultry meat. For beef an indication of where the animal was born, reared and slaughtered is required while for the other meats, reared and slaughtered is required. The word ‘origin’, where used on unprocessed fresh or frozen meat, means it is from an animal that was born, reared and slaughtered in the indicated country. Additional labelling rules apply for foods with primary ingredients. Where meat is the primary ingredient of a food product, for example a sausage or bacon, the origin of the primary ingredient must be given if different to the origin that is provided for the food product (which will be where the product is manufactured). This means consumers can have confidence in provenance and quality of the food they buy.

Each ingredient of pre-packed food must be included on the label. The ingredient must be the legal name of the food or, if there is no legal name, the customary name or a name that is sufficiently descriptive to enable consumers to know its true nature and distinguish it from other products with which it might be confused. Lab-grown meat is not meat as defined in food labelling legislation and does not therefore require its origin to be given, unless the omission of this information would cause a consumer to be misled. It is however required to be clearly labelled as an ingredient.