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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment she has made of the accuracy of information provided by supermarkets to consumers on country of origin status of food; and if she will make a statement.

In 2011, Defra facilitated a set of industry principles on country of origin labelling. These principles ensure that the vast majority of fresh produce, meat, milk and dairy products sold at retail in Britain are clearly labelled with their country of origin.

Most food law enforcement is delegated to local authorities throughout the UK to carry out checks of all food businesses in their area to ensure compliance with food safety, traceability and labelling requirements. Local Trading Standards Authorities have an enforcement role with respect to ensuring that general food labelling rules are complied with. The main role for the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in combatting misleading labelling of food is to provide assistance and resources to UK local authorities.

To support this, the FSA makes funding available to UK Enforcement Authorities for sampling and surveillance of food to help ensure risk-based, targeted checks on food products throughout the food chain. Food labelling and country of origin labelling have been prioritised in the current programme (2016/17) and details can be found on the food.gov.uk website.