labelling of beef and veal
New regulations on the labelling of
beef and veal, the Beef and Veal Labelling Regulations 2008,
came into force on 19 January 2009.
These regulations continue to enforce the
existing EU legislation on beef labelling which was previously
enforced by the Beef Labelling (Enforcement) (England) Regulations
2000 as amended (now revoked). They also enforce new EU provisions
on the marketing of meat from bovine animals aged 12 months or
less.
These new rules came into effect under EU
legislation from 1 July 2008. They are intended to protect
consumers from misleading or confusing sales descriptions for meat
from bovine animals aged 12 months or less. The sales descriptions
do, however, vary between Member States. The UK opted to call meat
from animals aged eight months or less (category V) ‘veal’ and
from animals aged more than eight months but not more than 12
months (category Z) ‘beef’, with the option of adding supplementary
information under the existing provisions of the Beef Labelling
Scheme (BLS). Some member states however elected to label
category Z meat as ‘rosé veal’. There is an option under the
EU legislation to apply to the Commission for the category Z
description to be changed in the future if the UK industry as a
whole decided that this was desirable.
The rules in England are administered by the
Rural Payments Agency (RPA).
The regulations can be found at http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2008/pdf/uksi_20083252_en.pdf.
