New
Challenges in the European Food Regulation: Paradigm Shifts for Supporting
Post-Crisis Resilience to Environmental Risks
by Lara FORNABAIO, PhD
Student, University of Ferrara, Margherita
POTO, Assistant Professor, University of Turin.
Food law is one of those systems subject to global regulation: when the
first food crisis hit in the late 1990s, the response of the European Union was
to build up a well-structured skeleton of regulatory tools in order to frame
psychotic symptoms of a threat to our health. The crisis and the consecutive drops in
consumption were the engine that powered a season of regulatory reforms.
Particularly, the regulatory model is based on good administration principles,
a set of actors (national and supranational) and a toolbox of global mechanisms
worked as laissez-passer to the qualification of food law as a sector of
the global administrative law. The ripple effects of the regulation on the
economies connected to the European market witness this trespass from the
regional problem-solution to a wider dimension.
After the global financial
earthquake provoked by the 2008 financial crisis, a dramatic and even more
pervasive wave of crisis engulfed Europe and the entire world. Since the
financial crisis triggered an increase in unemployment, severe wage cuts and
increased payments for loans, caused a decrease in the overall consumption of
products worldwide. The decline in consumption consequently resulted in the
decrease of the consumption of agro-food products, as people became more
price-sensitive and were trying to reduce their expenditures. Because the
overall household’s disposal income decreased, the price contradiction became
more noticeable for products with higher value added. As a result, the demand
for more expensive products fell and nowadays many people choose to consume
basic and cheaper products, leading thus to the decrease use of agro-food
products. And once again the food law
system had to be re-thought.
The decision to focus on
safety and to build up a structured system around “safe food” - that worked so
well as an anxiolytic response to the first (food) crisis - has to leave room
to a more elaborate set of regulatory techniques, where the password shall be
related to a concept of integrated sustainability, rather than on a vague
concept of “consumers’ health protection. Moving from a top-down regulatory
perspective to a wider scenario, where the sharing economy offers proactive
solutions to step forward, seems to be necessary.
It has been observed that
the sharing economy is such a puzzle for governments[1].
However,
beyond the problem of the definition itself, this type of activities raises a
number of important and controversial questions in the legal, economic, as well
as in the social and environmental fields. In order to provide a comprehensive
picture, this study addresses the need of re-thinking at the entire subject of food and
sustainability, starting from a new epistemological approach and, secondly, tries to point
out how crucial it is to re-organise the good administration principles in a
perspective where the participatory approach plays a pivotal role.
Food crises in the late 90s urged the European authorities to establish
a legal system, when a number of highly publicised food-borne diseases outbroke
in the United Kingdom and then spread all over Europe.
The Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) was the watershed between the
old and the new system[2].
In the decades from the establishment of a common market to the crisis of the
mid-1990s the regulatory needs in the food sector had been faced in a rather
empirical and patchy way (food regulated as a good in the common market;
horizontal legislation; general principles still in the realm of the European Court
of Justice case law).
The reversal in the regulatory approach generated a quite
well-structured regulatory system, with its own landmarks, identified in an
“ABC”[3],
where the powers of the public Authorities, the duties of food Business
operators and the needs to protect Consumers had been systematically and quite
heavily regulated. With the approval of Regulation (EU) n. 178 of 2002, also
known as the European General Food Law (GFL), the regulatory efforts were
framed within a solid structure, in a holistic approach covering all the stages
in the food supply chain (“from farm to fork”). Thanks to a well-defined scope
(protection of consumers’ health), to the drive toward the promotion of
cooperation, harmonisation and standardisation, and to explicitly mentioned general principles (precautionary as the
paramount, followed by legality, transparency, with all their corollaries), the
European Food Law system has been elevated to the status of a sector subject to
global regulation[4].
The matrix of a regulatory system in the fluid global arena has constant
features (Cassese defined them as “homogeneous patterns”[5]),
as regards as its actors (traditional States; independent authorities, half
private-half public; IGOs and NGOs; civil society), its common set of good
administration principles (with transparency and participation at the
forefront) and its monitoring mechanisms (administrative, judicial,
quasi-judicial review).
A regulatory system in the global arena is, by definition, multi-layered
(where the interconnection of levels recalls the image of an hourglass) and the
different layers are in constant and mutual interchange (the image of a marble
cake fits perfectly the theme). Food Law at European level, with its features
of trans-territorial administrative activity, harmonising the different legal
systems via common good administration principles and participatory standards,
its own regulatory body (the European Food Safety Authority, established by
Reg. n. 178/2002) and its network of cooperating actors, was a good example of
good governance temple, whose structure could serve as a basis to withstand the
fall of time and earthquakes. The weak aspect of this grandiose regulatory
system was that it remained anchored to a top-down regulatory strategy, where essentially
the legislator and the competent authorities played the lion-share in the
decisions and very little room was left to the participatory approach of all
the interested parties in the food supply chain, including the consumers. The
following crisis did not delay to show that an urgent reconsideration of the
whole functioning mechanism is today urgently needed. Keeping the good seeds of
the old, nevertheless strengthening the bottom-up approach by effectively
engaging the consumers in the decision-making process.
As said in the introduction, the system established after the BSE threat
was firmly anchored to safety, quality and hygiene standards, and seemed to be
triggered by a collective psychosis rather than grounded on sound and reasoned
systematic intention to provide long-term responses to the scarcity of natural
resources and food supplies. It is not surprising that very little room was
left to any reasoning connected to the concept of sustainability and limited
resources. For this reason, the more pervasive financial crisis in 2008 burst
into the system and threatened it like a house of cards, posing the civil
society serious questions, diverting the scale of priorities, from the safety
scares to the scarcity emergency.
This diversion, or –more softly- shift of paradigm has
been studied by the scholars interested in sharing economies studies and in
particular by Clive Hamilton, who used the term “Downshifting”, to describe the
voluntary decision to reduce income and consumption. Hamilton defines this new
category of aware individuals as “Voluntary simplifiers and cultural creatives
[…]” that “Are not for the most part motivated primarily by philosophical
concerns but by a desire to attain more balance in their lives”, choosing for
moderation and frugality rather than for consumption and wealth. “Rich lives
instead of lives of riches” is one of the mottos of the new self-creating
“downshifters” (50 million of individuals according to the survey), who
deliberately choose to earn less money and to attain more balance in their
lives, preferring to devote more time to their families, health and hobbies.
These actors have specific characteristics in the domain of food safety,
as they foster the idea of a new paradigm, based on the active engagement of
the participants of the food supply chain. Any reflection on sustainability
involves a whole community, and this is the lesson that we learn from nature:
the only way to sustain life is to build up and to nurture the community.
Well-informed consumers are at the core of a smart, sustainable and
inclusive growth and thanks to their ability and confidence in buying goods and
services, they can drive the internal market towards innovation and efficiency,
helping the European Union to get through the economic crisis. Therefore, the
Union should provide them with tools able to raise their awareness and promote
their right to make free and cautious choices.
Especially when it comes to food consumption, purchasers find themselves
in a position of weakness, intensified by the fact that food is not a choice
whereas it is everyone’s necessity. As a matter of fact, within the food
sector, communication does not have the role of persuading people to purchase
food - creating needs - while it has the function to drive their desires.
Particularly, since consumers do not know features and properties of food
products before consuming them, only information allows them to make conscious
decisions. Indeed, many food products’ elements - such as taste or quality of
ingredients - are the so-called experience
attributes[6],
in so far as people can find out about them only after consumption. In most
cases the product itself is not enough to give a clear and immediate idea of
its features, which, usually, depend on ingredients, place and ways of
production and so on.
For these reasons, transparency is essential for consumers, in order to
gain awareness, as well as for business operators, that have to meet consumers’
preferences. We have to cope with the ambiguity of information as a tool for
protecting consumers’ health and to preserve economic interests: on the one
hand, it meets consumers’ needs not to be misled and, on the other hand,
producers’ necessity, to attract purchasers and make them loyal to the brand.
This is why when the European Union decided to step in with Regulation
(EU) No. 1169 of 2011, it looked for an instrument able to adapt to the
different roles that information plays on the food market, both as a way to
earn awareness, for consumers, and as a tool for advertising, for producers.
Starting from a wide notion of food information, the mentioned Regulation takes into account that
“Every other means including modern technology tools and verbal communication”[7]. Indeed, although information within the food sector
is not ontologically free -as far as contents, procedures and methods are
involved- nowadays a progressively higher number of means of information is
available to purchasers and, this way, the European legislator guarantees that
every circumstance, including, for instance, distance selling[8]
and marketing practices through digital media, falls into the new rules. It is
true, though, that labels have a central function within the food market, since
they seem to be the most flexible instrument so far. As a matter of fact, labels contain figures, certifications, commercial
lures, so that they can give exposure to what business operators wish to
highlight rather than to what purchasers need to know concerning allergens,
expiration date, conditions of use and so on.
Despite this key role, labels are
not easy to understand. If commercials are generally effortlessly readable,
with front-of-pack clear sentences, able to catch consumers’ attention, an
increasing sophistication of mandatory “messages” often makes it harder for
consumers to become fully informed. First of all, before information can be
processed, it must, at least, gain consumers’ attention. Nonetheless, mandatory
information is usually on the back of the package and, despite sounding as a ludicrous
element to point out, we shall consider that people always look for ways to
save time, so that, from this viewpoint, even the action of turning around an
item, no matter how simple it is, might require too much time[9].
Secondly, technical terms and abbreviations are used and, occasionally, the
body type might be hard to read[10]. Not to mention that the complex and numerous
information requirements may bring to an “information overload”[11].
A long list of product information
might lead many consumers to disregard the label rather than to make it harder
to order each piece of information according to importance[12].
This way, what it is supposed to inform, might end up to
confuse purchasers. As a matter of fact, the recent Eurobarometer
findings on food waste
and date marking[13],
show that the meaning of date marking on food products is generally
misunderstood and consumers have difficulties in comprehending the terms “Best
before” and “Use-by”[14].
The growing number of information provided to the consumers could lead to a
better protection only if they are able to shift from those indications on
labels to actual knowledge. However, this learning process, when purchasing
food, does not depend on how big or coloured notices are; rather it is
connected with intelligibility issues.
Moreover, this area of research is
made particularly complex by the fact that consumption behaviour and motivation
have been continuously changing in the past years.
On the one
hand, the economic crisis strongly impacted on families’ budget for food,
causing many changes in people’s attitude towards consumption: some of them
reduce the quantity, trying to waste a bit less, while others have been forced
to reduce quality, finding easier and more affordable to purchase unhealthy
food.
On the other hand, a new category of
consumers arose, and their behaviour, besides availability and price, has been
influenced by factors such as environmental and ethical concerns or social
relations[15]. Actually, even if price remains an essential
element, some consumers seem to select products more carefully, paying
attention to the relation price/quality and price/ethics. As a matter of fact,
the 2015 Nielsen multi-country survey on the “Corporate Social Responsibility
and Sustainability”, after 30,000 interviews in 60 countries, identifies an
average of 66% respondents willing to pay more for social and environmental
features of the products[16].
In the mentioned cases, the choice is a more reasoned process than an answer to
irrational impulses and companies must adapt their communication strategies to
this new dimension of consumption[17],
as these kinds of consumers “seek to satisfy complex preferences and their
desire to buy goods which match their lifestyles”.[18]
The current system does not make the
majority of consumers able to play their active role within the food market,
since, very often, it looks as if they are overwhelmed
by tons of information. We should shape the moment of purchasing food as
something that start way before supermarkets’ aisles, as only if we have
provided consumers with education we can communicate with them[19] and not simply give them information[20].
The raising question then is: how can we
address transparency in commercial practices and, by doing this, foster a new
and sustainable model of consumption?
Sustainable consumption requires changes not simply from individuals but
from communities. While some individuals have the ability, interest and
resources to modify their behaviours independently, some others do not.
However, this kind of shift, in order to be effective, must be brought to an
audience as wider as possible: this is the role of law and public policies.
In order to
promote a different model of consumption, it is necessary to endorse a new
perspective on the food supply chain, developing real connections between
consumers and producers. This means, for example, to educate consumers about
production methods, environmental impacts of the food they purchase or its
place of provenance. This low-impact, less processed and more local food system
can be boosted in different manners but, in order to reach the widest audience
possible, it requires official legal policies. For these reasons three ways might
be of particular interest: education campaigns, transparency through labels
about environmental impacts of food choices, direct selling from farmers.
Starting from education, school programs for kids might be a good vehicle
for spreading long-term understanding of food, within the community.
Initiatives such as farm-to-school ones allow students to be engaged in
activities related to agriculture, food, health or nutrition: on the one hand,
kids will have the chance to learn from gardening, on the other hand farmers
will gain the opportunity to purchase their food, strengthening the local
economy. This kind of initiatives help kids - and through them their families -
to raise awareness not only about healthy dietary habits but also about the
environmental cost of the actual food system, rather then they improve the
consumers-of-the-future’s ability to read labels and understand them. In such a
model, the introduction of informative labels on food products, increasing
transparency, would have an effective role in explaining the consequences of
the food choices we make everyday. Governments can foster eco-labelling
programs in order to lead market forces towards the promotion of “more
environmentally friendly patterns of production”[21].
Public “official” eco-labels, rather than self-declared eco-labelling schemes[22]
and organic products labelling, might play a pivotal role in spreading
knowledge and awareness about environmentally detrimental food, enabling
consumers to make comparisons among the different food-production categories.
Particularly, “Eco-labels would be based on a technocratic assessment of
product’s life-cycle, providing consumers with a location of production and
chemicals used in the production process”[23].
Despite this, currently, the European eco-labels programs do not regard food,
while it is about, inter alia, beauty
care and cleaning up products, clothing, do-it-yourself items, electronic
equipment and also holiday accommodation[24].
However, effective communication needs education, as every element in
this system is deeply interconnected. Although informative labels would be
useful instruments even nowadays, surely their impact would be diminished by
the fact that, as we pointed out in the previous paragraph, the majority of
consumers do not pay so much attention to labels or, in the worst
case scenario, do not understand them. Nonetheless, eco-labelling on the
one hand can provide “more sensitive” consumers with objective data obtained by
technical life-cycle analysis and, on the other hand, can prompt less-engaged
consumers to wonder which are the differences among the different products on
the shelves, stimulating their curiosity and eventually persuading them to look
for more information about their food choices. Therefore, it should be easier, even
in the current food system, to gain knowledge about health and nutrition as
well as about chemical and fertilization techniques and their impacts, food
miles and food carbon footprint, place of production and the supply chain.
Finally, public policies, should endorse direct marketing by farmers
that will provide local food. In order to do so, both local governments and
state laws are necessary: the formers, as they can concretely impact on farmers’
markets viability -having markets in convenient and trafficked areas, maybe
close to places where people live and work-, the latter as they can encourage
regular grocery shopping at farmer’s markets, for instance providing low-income
seniors or families in needs with coupons exchangeable for food, or including
local farmers in public sector catering.
In conclusion, the current globalised food system does not fit
sustainable consumption since it separates economic transactions from social
and environmental context[25].
Hence, we should start designing a different food chain, going beyond the
traditional antithesis between producers on the one side, and consumers on the
other side. Indeed, Regulation (EU) No 1169 of 2011 itself points out that “This Regulation will both serve the interests of the
internal market by simplifying the law, ensuring legal certainty and reducing
administrative burden, and benefit citizens by requiring clear, comprehensible
and legible labelling of foods”[26].
Undoubtedly, if we compare the past perspective - based on the Directive 79/112/CEE[27], which
considered consumers’ protection
worthy only if it helped the implementation of competition - with the new one, we can state that there has already
been a step forward towards a more collaborative food chain, but it cannot be
deemed enough. The new target should be to erase the continuous tension between the opposite poles of consumers and producers; and we might be able to
reach this goal through bottom-up participation, as it’s been already shaped,
even if only in rough draft, in Articles 3 and 4, Reg. 1169/2011. The aim is
not to destroy the past system, whereas to harvest its positive elements as
seeds for a sustainable new model.
As a starting point, Article 3, of the mentioned Regulation, tries to
reconcile these parties requiring food information to pursue a high level of
protection of consumers’ health and interests, while taking into account
producers’ legitimate need to be protected, in order to achieve the free
movement of legally produced and marketed food within the European Union. Although,
currently, the goal of a more participated decision-making process seems far
from being reached, Articles 3 and 4 introduce a sort of democratic criteria,
when referring to consultations and attention to consumers’ need. Particularly,
paragraph 4, Article 3, requires an “open and transparent public consultation”,
directly with stakeholders as well as through their organizations, during
“preparation, evaluation and revision of food information law, except where the
urgency of the matter does not allow it”. Similarly, paragraph 2, Article 4,
Reg. (EU) 1169/2011, about mandatory food information, establishes that how the
majority of consumers values some information should be taken into account.
Thanks to this sort of democratic criteria, we might begin thinking of
consumers as co-producers or pro-sumers, able to address production towards
sustainability. In such a system we can imagine a different and round food
chain, where every link influences the others, as they are all interconnected.
Talking about consumption, then, would not gather the essential elements of
this model: a language shift, as well, is required, in order to describe these
ecological citizens, who prefer sharing goods rather than consuming them.
Our take it
that the introduction of a sharing economy model in the food sector might offer
a complementary solution to the lack of effective participation of the involved
parties (and mostly of the consumers), which in the end was one of the
co-factors of the relatively weakness of the system to resist the crises.
Though we are conscious that it is currently highly challenging for the
European Union to deal with the disruptive innovation that the sharing economy
has been causing[28],
we believe that some accommodating efforts could be undertaken in order to
include the logic of sharing within the tissue of the food regulatory
framework. The logic of sharing implies that less services and goods are
produced and wasted. An amazing achievement, that connects us to the times of
the bartering system, with a set of at least five benefits. First, bartering
helps to save money, for unwanted assets and extra time can be bartered.
Second, it curbs consumerism, with its core idea to shift from the shopping
mentality to the swapping advantages. Third, it has a social impact, since it
fosters the idea of connecting people and helping each other by exchanging
skills and services. Fourth, it helps, through the geo-location system in
technological devices, to leave a smaller environmental footprint and to get
maximum utility out of unwanted possessions. Last but not least, it contributes
to a general feeling of cleanliness.[29]
When studying
the regulatory tools adopted in a multilayered system (as the one of the
financial markets, as well as the environmental protection and food safety), we
have supported the idea of a participatory democracy through networks,
ascertaining how the development of our global village has required the
developments of new rules, based on networks rather than on hierarchical
systems, grounded on transparency and efficiency rather than on top-down
approaches. This way, the world could be defined in terms of global village as
a beautifully fitting oxymoron, suggesting that the community, united by the
speed of trade and communication, takes on the dimensions of a village.
The
International community, and European society are, in fact, societies of
individuals, or simple citizens in a supranational public place, perceived as
an extension of the private domain. Nations, like individuals, do likewise.
Hence the future of globalisation depends on the cooperative effort of both
individuals and nations in contributing to the opening up of choices and of
integration.
Rethinking the
system in terms of sharing economy where the consumers play an active as
co-decision maker – and consequently were top-down regulatory approach and the
bottom-up participatory dynamics merge into one comprehensive system, clearly
show that the decision-making process is no more only in the hands of the
public authorities (at the top of the pyramid of the decisions), but it is
rather the result of a participatory methodology which uses the network system
at its best. The reasoning in terms of network is at the basis of the
definition of collaborative economy, as
the economic system of decentralised networks and marketplaces
that unlocks the value of underused assets by matching needs and haves.
This
way, the old paradigm of the ABC focused on the regulation of roles and
responsibilities of the three categories of actors (Authorities, Business,
Consumers), can be replaced by an ABC rather focused on the players’ features
and on the regulatory mechanisms. Awareness, Bartering system and Collaborative
economy shall be the new key words that can trigger the change. Likewise, the
old set of good administration principles shall be adapted and revised in order
to guarantee an effective participation for all the members of the food supply
chain, which could shift from a linear model to a circuitry, where all the
parties are actively involved and contribute to the final decision.
[1] Rachel Botsman, Defining
The Sharing Economy: What Is Collaborative Consumption – And What Isn’t? Are Airbnb, Zipcar, Etsy, and Uber really all doing
the same thing? Or do we need betterdefinitions of this new economic force?, in http://www.fastcoexist.com/3046119/defining-the-sharing-economy-what-is-collaborative-consumption-and-what-isnt.
Accessed in December 2015.
[2] It has been
observed that the BSE not only was the pivotal point for the establishment of a
new regulatory system in Food Law, but also the triggering cause of the UK
administrative constitutionalism, Elizabeth Fischer, Risk Regulation and Administrative Constitutionalism, Bloomsbury
Publishing, 2007, 1-256.
[3] The
expression was used for the first time by Bernd van der Meulen, in The System of Food Law in the European Union,
14 DEAKIN L. REV. 305 (2009), 310: “The ABC of EU Food Law The ‘ABC’ of EU food
law is its focus on Authorities, Businesses and Consumers. The three are,
however, addressed in very different ways. While the protection of the life,
health and other interests of consumers is the main objective of food law […]; EU food legislation does not provide consumers with any
specific rights or remedies. Consumers who want to take legal action must rely
on general consumer protection law such as product liability legislation […].
The key to food safety is in the hands of the businesses handling the food. The
most important requirements regarding food are addressed to businesses.
Obligations of public authorities - both at Community and at Member State level
- are secondary to the obligations of businesses. Authorities have to ensure
businesses’ compliance and they have to deal with situations of
non-compliance”. Id., The Structure of European Food Law, Laws
(2013), 2, 69–98; doi:10.3390/laws2020069.
[4] Among the
founding fathers of global administrative law, it is worth mentioning, Benedict
Kingsbury, Nico Krisch and Richard B. Stewart, The Emergence of Global Administrative Law Law and Contemporary
Problems, Vol. 68, No. 3/4, The
Emergence of Global Administrative Law (Summer - Autumn, 2005), pp. 15-61;
Sabino Cassese, Administrative Law
Without the State? The Challenge of Global Regulation, 37 N.Y.U. J. Int’l. L. & Pol. 663 (2004-2005).
[5] Sabino Cassese, op. cit., 665.
[6]
Here I am referring to the distinction between search and experience
goods, introduced by Philip Nelson,
Information and Consumer Behavior, in Journal
of Political Economy, Vol. 78, No. 2 (Mar.-Apr., 1970), pp. 311-329. Search products or services have attributes
customers can readily evaluate before they purchase, while experience products or services can be evaluated only
after purchase. In the first case, well-informed buyers are aware of the
substitutes that exist for these types of products and thus are likely to be
more price sensitive than other buyers; in the second one buyers tend to be
less price sensitive, especially if it is their first purchase of said product
and they will pay attention to product’s brand and reputation, due to
consistency of quality and loyalty. Nelson makes the example of canned tuna
fish: “To evaluate brands of canned tuna fish, for example,
the consumer would almost certainly purchase brands of tuna fish for
consumption. He could, then, determine from several purchases which brand he
preferred. We will call this information process ‘experience’. For tuna fish there is no
effective search alternative open.” (p. 312).
Michael R. Darby and Edi Karni, in 1973, added a third
group of products, the credence goods, that have attributes buyers cannot confidently evaluate,
even after one or more purchases. They include health care; legal consulting; advertising and IT services. For this kind of goods price
sensitivity tends to be relatively low. See
Michael R. Darby and Edi Karni, Free
Competition and the Optimal Amount of Fraud, Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 16, No. 1, (Apr., 1973),
pp. 67-88. The example they refer to is the removal of an appendix, “which will
be correct or not according to whether the organ is diseased. The purchaser
will have no different experience after the operation whether or not the organ
was diseased.” (p. 69).
[7] Article 2, Regulation (EU) 1169 of 2011.
[8] Article 14, Regulation (EU) 1169 of 2011.
[9] This is
particularly true for nutritional labels, as BEUC members’ research shows. See BEUC, Informed food choices for healthier consumers. BEUC
position on nutrition, BEUC–X-2015-008 –
04/02/2015.
[10]
Even if it refers to American consumers we can mention the report by Bruce
Silverglade and Irene Ringel Heller, Food
labelling chaos. The case for reform, Centre for Science in the Public
Interest, Washington DC, (2010), p. 45, where the authors underline that
consumers find it harder to read capital letters, instead of upper and lower
letters, as well as full justification, which tends to squish letters and words
together. At the same time, it is not easy to correctly identify ingredients in
the ingredients list. If we think of added sugar, for instance, because sugar has numerous names
such as lactose, fruit juice concentrates, etc., consumers might not be able to
identify them as a source of added sugars. Hence, it would be better to group
them together in the ingredient list, so that consumers get a truer picture of
how many sugary ingredients are actually in the product.
[11] Jacob Jacoby,
Perspective on Information Overload, Journal of Consumer Research, (1984).
[12] Lars Noah, The imperative to warn: disentangling the
“right to know” from “the need to know” about consumer product hazards, 11
(2) Yale Journal on Regulation,
(1994), mentioned in Elise Golan, Fred Kuchler, Lorraine Mitchell et al., Economics of Food Labeling, Economic
Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Economic Report
No 793, (2000), at p. 14.
[13] Flash
Eurobarometer 425, Food waste and date
marking, Fieldwork September 2015, Publication October 2015. The survey was
carried out by TSN political & social network and it involved 26.601
respondents from the 28 Member States.
[14] More
precisely, only 47% of Europeans understand the meaning of “best before” and
40% the one of “use by”. There are differences on the one hand at
country-level, about both awareness and understanding of this kind of
labelling, and on the other hand at socio-demographic level.
[15] BEUC, Informed food choices
for healthier consumers. BEUC position on nutrition,
BEUC–X-2015-008 – 04/02/2015.
[16] Complete survey at http://www.nielsen.com/ug/en/press-room/2015/consumer-goods-brands-that-demonstrate-commitment-to-sustainability-outperform.html,
visited in April 2016.
[17] Mario Abis, Which communication to consumers?, 2 Rivista di Diritto Alimentare,
(April-June 2011), at p.1.
[18] Leonardo
Becchetti, Voting with the wallet, Aiccon Working Paper, 2011, p. 12. As
Professor Becchetti says in the mentioned paper:
“The vote with the wallet is a new, emerging
feature of economic participation and democracy in the globally-integrated
market economy. This expression identifies the pivotal role that responsible
consumption and investment can play in addressing social and environmental
emergencies which have been aggravated by the asymmetry of power between
domestic institutions and global corporations”. The most interesting example
here is the “fair trade” one: these kinds of products are bounded with a social
and environmental content, that satisfies consumers’
needs for ethics. Hence, from this point of view, “the price premium should be
perceived not as a distortion, but as a different portioning of value in the
value chain between producers and importers”.
[19] This is particularly
true if we think, for instance, of organic food. It is mostly displayed as more
advisable but, at the same time, it usually costs more. If we want consumers to
purchase it, the only thing we can do is to persuade them that the price
corresponds to peculiar qualities that make it healthier and better for the
environment. In order to do so, labels are not enough, by reason of we should
firstly make consumers aware of this mentioned point of view, giving them the
chance - this time for real - to buy what fits their needs the most.
[20] The
difference between information and communication is underlined by Fausto
Capelli, Evoluzione del ruolo dell’etichettatura
degli alimenti: dalle proprietà nutritive agli effetti sulla salute, alla luce
della proposta di nuovo regolamento sull’informazione al consumatore di
prodotti alimentari, 4 Dir. Com. E Scambi
Intern., (2009), at p. 839.
[21] Surya P.
Subedi, Balancing International Trade
with Environmental Protection: International Legal Aspects of Eco-Labels,
25 Brooklyn J. Int. Law, (1999),
373.
[22] The proliferation of self-declared eco-labelling schemes has caused consumers’ confusion and scepticism over the
reliability of environmental claims, leading to the so called
greenwashing phenomenon. See Jason Czarnezki, A.
Homan, M. Jeans, Creating order amidst
food eco-label chaos, Duke
Environmental Law and Policy Forum, Vol. XXV:281,
p. 282, and Jason J. Czarnezki, Andrew Homan and Meghan Jeans, Greenwashing
& Self-Declared Seafood Ecolabels, 28 Tul.
Envtl. L.J. 37, 38–39 (2014).
[23] Jason J.
Czarnezki, Everyday Environmentalism.
Law, Nature and Individual Behavior, ELI PRESS, (2011), p. 81.
[24] For a complete list See http://ec.europa.eu/environment/ecolabel/eu-ecolabel-products-and-services.html, visited in April 2016.
[25] Gill Seyfang,
Ecological Citizenship and Sustainable Consumption:
Examining Local Organic Food Networks, Journal
of Rural Studies 22, (2006) 386.
[26] Whereas No 9, Reg. (EU) No 1169/2011.
[27] Protection of
health was not at the core of the Directive 79/112/CEE, as the harmonization of
the rules about food information to consumers was considered, at that time, an
efficient instrument to prevent Member States from setting rules that,
justified by health protection interests, actually hid an attempt to favour the
national markets. The Union’s main target was to create equal conditions of
competition for all business operators, thus the first European rules
concerning accuracy and transparency of information introduced only bans, in
order to avoid that unfair messages could wrongly persuade consumers to buy a
product instead of another. The above-mentioned Directive aimed at guaranteeing
that false information to consumers did not lead them to misrepresent reality,
causing obstacles within the internal market.
[28] Florin Zubascu, The sharing economy is
bringing disruptive innovation to Europe, in Science Business, published on
2nd July 2015 at:
http://www.sciencebusiness.net/news/77109/The-sharing-economy-is-bringing-disruptive-innovation-to-Europe.
[29] See the
booklet The Sharing Economy at:
https://www.pwc.com/us/en/technology/publications/assets/pwc-consumer-intelligence-series-the-sharing-economy.pdf.