How reassuring are food assurance labels?

The Food Programme

BBC

Arts, Food

4.4 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2019

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Food assurance labels come in all sorts of forms, appearing on all sorts of ingredients available from shops across the UK. Their logos promise certified standards in a range of production attributes - from environmental impact to animal welfare to safety to chemical usage.

But how well are these schemes understood? What does the general public really want to be assured about? How much impact can assurance labels have, in a world where we're eating more and more processed food? And what could such schemes contribute to a post-Brexit UK food system?

Sheila Dillon is joined by an expert panel to discuss some of the questions around food assurance labels: Dr Siobhan Mullan, a Senior Research Fellow in Farm Animal Science at the University of Bristol Veterinary School, who's currently helping to develop a new food standard, the Global Federation of Higher Animal Welfare Assurance; Erik Millstone, a Professor of Science Policy at the University of Sussex, whose work focuses on how we structure our food system; and Phil Brooke the Research and Education Manager at the animal welfare lobbying organisation Compassion in World Farming - which has an ongoing 'Honest Labelling' campaign.

Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Lucy Taylor

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You don't need us to tell you there's a general election coming.
0:04.7	So what does it mean for you?
0:06.7	Every day on newscast we dissect the big talking points, the ones that you want to know more about.
0:12.4	With our book of contacts, we talk directly to the people you want to hear from.
0:16.8	And with help from some of the best BBC journalists,
0:19.5	we'll untangle the stories that matter to you.
0:23.0	Join me, Laura Kunsberg, Adam Fleming, Chris Mason and Patty O'Connell for our daily
0:28.4	podcast.
0:29.4	Newscast, listen on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. This week's program is about food assurance schemes, those labels that you find on food and before we start in the studio I thought I'd
0:57.4	have a look in my own covers my own French to see what food I've got with labels on it.
1:04.0	Okay, let's begin in my larder cupboard.
1:09.0	The first thing I see is some British-grown pearl barley that's leaf assured it's got a leaf on it not
1:19.5	quite sure what leaf is, some pure coconut oil, which has three labels on it, fair trade, vegan,
1:30.7	and non-EU agriculture bio.
1:36.8	That must mean organic, I think.
1:40.2	Some lentils, British grown again, and they have a organic label on them, a soil association.
1:54.0	Let's have a look in the fridge.
1:57.0	A box of eggs, it says free range and large letters.
2:06.0	Bacon, that's got an RSPCA label on it meeting some good animal welfare standards I hope.
2:17.0	I wonder what other shoppers make of this. I mean I work in food and there are some labels here I I really don't
2:27.0	understand so I hope this program is going to make it clear to me and to other people. I wonder what most shoppers make of all these labels as they
2:36.7	go up and down the supermarket isles. Here's a selection of food assurance labels that we have here in the UK. Do you recognize any of them?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.