Food: Labelling

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs written question – answered at on 2 February 2021.

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Photo of Victoria Prentis Victoria Prentis The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The underlying principles of food labelling rules are that information provided on food should enable consumers to make informed choices and that any misleading information, including on the origin or provenance of food, is prohibited. In order to comply with the legal requirement not to mislead consumers established in Article 7.1 of the retained Regulation 1169/2011 on the provision of food information to consumers, produce grown in Western Sahara which requires origin labelling or has it indicated on a voluntary basis, should be labelled as origin Western Sahara, not as origin Morocco.

The UK-Morocco Association Agreement applies in the same way as the EU-Morocco agreements. It treats products originating in Western Sahara subject to controls by customs authorities of Morocco in the same way as the EU-Morocco Association Agreement, in line with the European Court of Justice's ruling on that issue and the subsequent amendment of the EU-Morocco Association Agreement.   It means that products originating in Western Sahara subject to controls by customs authorities of Morocco benefit from the same trade preferences as those granted by the UK to products covered by the UK-Morocco Association Agreement.

The UK is clear that the application of parts of the UK-Morocco Association Agreement to certain products originating in Western Sahara, in line with European Court of Justice's ruling on that issue, is without prejudice to our position on the status of Western Sahara, which we regard as undetermined.

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