Close-up on the meat we eat. Consumers want honest labels

Many meat-based foods sold across the European Union (EU) are not properly labelled or do not contain the correct ingredients. As a result, consumers are misinformed about the meat they buy. These shortcomings have been brought to light by seven European consumer organisations through tests carried out between April 2014 and August 2015.

These BEUC member organisations have analysed a range of meat-based foods to check their labels, their ingredients and to check for the presence of undeclared or illegal food additives. Our findings revealed frequent cases of:

• confusing product names;
• incomplete labels which fail to highlight added water for example, or which fail to declare the percentage of meat in the product;
• use of illegal food additives;
• use of undeclared mechanically-separated meat;
• fraudulent use of other species as a substitute, e.g. turkey kebab sold as veal.

With the 2013 horsemeat scandal still fresh in many minds, European consumers should be able to trust the labels on the meat they buy. But if they are to be able to do so, public authorities must tighten their checks to guarantee that food manufacturers abide by EU food laws.