Better information to consume better. By the end of the year, the Origin’Info logo will appear on the packaging of certain processed food products, the Ministry of the Economy announced on Saturday May 25 in a press release. As its name suggests, this new signage aims to provide “a concrete and clear response to a request from all consumers: to know where what we eat comes from”declares the Minister Delegate in charge of Business, Tourism and Consumption, Olivia Grégoire.
Imagined by the En Vérité collective, which brings together around sixty brands in the agri-food sector, this new system is not a law, but a charter, the objective of which is to clarify the sometimes misleading statements which appear on packaging. .
1 What information will appear on the packaging?
In the Bercy press release, the Minister of Agriculture, Marc Fesneau, welcomed the implementation of this tool, praising a “synthetic, clear, readable and harmonized information” on what the processed products contain. The logo, imagined in blue or black, offers three models: the first which lists the three main agricultural materials of the product and their countries of origin; another completed by an indication of the place where the product was transformed, represented by a small factory; and finally, a version this time supplemented by a graph in the form of a pie chart, representing the relative share of each country of origin in the composition of the dish.
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On an illustrative photo representing a Bolognese pasta dish, we can read “wheat France”, “tomatoes Italy” And “French beef”. “We are talking about primary products and not ingredients”warned the Ministry of the Economy, cited by The Parisian, remembering that “flour is an ingredient and the wheat which composes it is its primary product.”
Concretely, theManufacturers who adhere to the system charter must include “at least the ingredient exceeding 50% of the quantity (milk for a yogurt, for example) and/or the emblematic ingredient(s) (the strawberry for a strawberry yogurt)”summarizes the specialized site LSA-Conso. “And if no ingredient exceeds the 50% threshold, the main characteristic ingredients should be included (for example ham and cheese for a pizza advertised as ham/cheese)”.
Finally, “Lmembers of the approach will not use any mention of supranat originional, such as EU, non-EU, unless the number of country‘origin is greater than or equal to four”, can we read in the charter.
2 Will this labeling be mandatory?
No. The Origin’info logo will not be obligatory. In addition, the company will not be obliged to appear on the packaging of a product manufactured by a company adhering to the charter. In fact, this information could appear on electronic labels on shelves, on brand drive-thru sites, or even be accessible only through a QR Code to be deciphered with the phone.
In The Parisian, Olivia Grégoire justified this possibility by noting that certain ingredients can change country of origin over the seasons, such as strawberries in yogurts or tomatoes in tomato sauce. The QR Code thus avoids the company having to “regularly modify its packaging” or “the information on the packaging is incorrect”noted the minister.
For the moment, 80 brands, several of which are also members of the En Vérité collective, which imagined the system, have already indicated their participation, according to the Bercy press release. Members include Fleury Michon, Bonduelle, D’Aucy, Lesieur, Panzani and Saint-Mamet, as well as most major distributors, except Auchan which is waiting until 2025 to implement this new feature.
By the end of the year, more than 10,000 references should display Origin’Info, according to the ministry.
3 What positive effects are expected from this new logo?
In addition to informing the consumer, Origin’Info “will also make it possible to fight against certain misleading practices, detrimental to farmers, such as the sometimes abusive use of the French flag when no ingredient in the product comes from France”, further noted the Ministry of the Economy. The agricultural sectors are indeed waiting “more transparency from food processing companies, in addition to already existing regulatory obligations”, said the Bercy press release.
Because, if the law requires that the mention of the country of origin appears clearly for raw products (fruit and vegetables, meat, fish, but also honey or even wine), the use of raw materials purchased from abroad by agri-food manufacturers was among the reasons for the farmers’ revolt at the start of 2024.
Consumers are indeed demanding labeling “clear, reliable, practical and relevant”, unveiled in 2017 a CLCV study carried out with INRA. The origin of the products appeared as the second most consulted information (33%) before the act of purchase, just behind the price (35%). In October, a study by En Vérité (PDF), in which the collective of agri-food professionals tested the effectiveness of its logo project, further ensuring that “displaying the origin of raw materials is considered important for 85% of French people, followed closely by the place of processing (82%).”
4 And what are its limits?
“The initiative proposed by the government can only be a starting point”, declared the associations CLCV, Familles Rurales, Foodwatch and UFC-Que Choisir on Friday. “It is necessary to bring to the European level an obligation to label the origin of processed products, as precisely as possible and on a non-dematerialized medium”, they said in a joint press release. For CLCV, “this type of logo is only useful if it is possible to compare the products with each other.” The association thus demands that “the display of the logo is obligatory and at least present on all brands for professionals who engage in the process.”
Finally, the associations regret “an approach based solely on volunteerism. brands having a supply policy with multiple, variable or distant origins, will not be encouraged to demonstrate more transparency, nor to modify their practices”, they pleaded, calling has “expand the obligation to the origin of other characterizing ingredients of a food.”
For Pact’Alim, which represents SMEs and ETIs (mid-sized companies) in the food sector, it is essential that “this harmonization is also carried out at the European level, so as not to impose constraints on French companies which would not apply to their competitors and to allow the consumer to have the information whatever the country of manufacture, in particular for imported products”, the organization said in a press release.
Speaking before the National Assembly on May 17, Marc Fesneau has in any case made it known that the subject of labeling would be raised at the next European Council, we can read on the website of The Parliamentary Channel. That day, the deputies adopted an amendment to the agricultural orientation bill aimed at imposing a display of the origin of food products in graphic form, from January 1, 2025. However, the channel points out, this amendment was not supported by the government , the latter fearing problems of “compliance with European law.” And he prefers, in the meantime, the non-binding Origin’info system.