OCU launches “Do we know what we are eating?” to improve consumer information

OCU, along with other European organisations, has launched the campaign Do we know what we are eating? http://www.ocu.org/movilizate/sabemos-que-comemos The goal is to improve the information provided on the labels of food products so that consumers really know what they are buying and what they are eating.

Despite the new European regulation on food labelling coming into force last December, consumers are still struggling to find out about everyday food products. A recent study by OCU warns of difficulties for consumers to read labels, to correctly identify what the food is really called, to recognise how many and which ingredients it contains or to know the country of origin of the foods that we eat every day.

What OCU intends through this campaign is that the spirit of the new regulations on labelling be respected (only a part of which has recently come into force since this regulation has several phases of implementation). The Organisation simply asks that consumers should really know what they are buying: the name of the food to be clearly visible and ingredients which are not the main ones, should not be highlighted purely for reasons of publicity.

OCU also calls for legislation to establish an efficient framework of official controls over labelling to ensure proper compliance of the relevant laws. Similarly, OCU considers it basic and fundamental to ensure that the consumer can see and understand the trade names through bigger letters which should be on the front next to the brand name.

In this campaign http://www.ocu.org/movilizate/sabemos-que-comemos consumers can send the labels of the products that they aren’t sure about. Problems with product labelling account for almost half of the queries OCU receives about food. The main problems in consumer labelling focus on the origin of the food, the percentage of certain ingredients (fruit, olive oil, ...) or the limited presence in reality of ingredients that give their name to the product and are all too often what makes us buy the product. Through http://www.ocu.org/movilizate/sabemos-que-comemos and the hashtag #etiquetastrampa OCU asks consumers to collaborate and to help identify products whose labelling causes problems. With the information we obtain OCU will ask the various administrations and companies for labelling changes to allow consumers to have adequate information on products so they can choose without making mistakes, in other words that consumers actually know they are buying and eating.


For more information (media): Eva Jimenez Tel .:   91 722 60 61 - ejimenez@ocu.org
www.ocu.org