The European Commission is taking steps to harmonise the food standards in the European Union

On 26 September 2017 the European Commission issued guidelines on the application of EU food and consumer protection law in relation to the issue of dual quality of products. The Commission’s action is a response to reprehensible practices of some food companies that differentiate the quality of sold products depending on where they are distributed.

The described problem was noticed primarily in Central Europe countries. The comparative food tests conducted in Austria and Slovakia showed substantial differences in the composition of as many as 10 out of 22 tested products. Similar results were obtained in Hungary and Romania. Recently the problem of double standards of food has also been noticed in the UK.

According to the Commission the European Union has developed a comprehensive legislative framework which at the current stage enables the effective protection of consumer rights on the food market. These regulations include primarily the protection of consumers against the misleading information and are contained in:

• Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 laying down the general principles and requirements of food law,

• Regulation (EC) No 1169/2011 on the provision of food information to consumers,

• Directive 2005/29/EC on unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market.

According to the Commission placing food products on the market should first be checked against the regulation on food law and regulation on the provision of food information. These legal acts regulate, inter alia, a list of mandatory information that should be placed on the food products before placing it on the market.

The European Commission has indicated that placing on the market products of different composition in the same packaging and within the same brand may also be contradictory to the provisions of the directive on unfair commercial practices. This directive should only be used supplementally, if it is possible to demonstrate that:

• consumers have specific justified expectations for a given product as compared to the ‘reference product’ and the product is far from the expectations,

• the entrepreneur omits precise information or does not pass it on to consumers, so they cannot understand that the product may be inconsistent with their expectations,

• inaccurate or insufficient information can distort the market behaviour of the average consumer, for example, that they may induce him to buy a product which otherwise he would not have bought.

The Commission underlined that national enforcement of EU food safety and food labelling regulations depends primarily on the national consumer and food authorities.