{"id":5042,"date":"2016-04-14T14:42:48","date_gmt":"2016-04-14T14:42:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vwa.co.uk\/blog\/?p=5042"},"modified":"2025-05-12T10:38:54","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T10:38:54","slug":"five-bizarre-eu-food-rules-eu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vwa.co.uk\/blog\/five-bizarre-eu-food-rules-eu\/","title":{"rendered":"Five bizarre European Union (EU) food rules"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Are you hoping Britain will remain in the EU?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Are you hoping Britain will remain in the European Union (EU)? Or are you ready to say \u2018au revoir\u2019? Wherever your sympathies lie, there\u2019s no denying that some of laws they\u2019ve passed relating to food (or tried to) are slightly bizarre…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bendy bananas? Don\u2019t be daft!<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I think everyone remembers the EU stance on bananas and cucumbers. \u2018But bananas are meant to be curved, and cucumbers aren\u2019t naturally straight!\u2019 We cried. It fell on deaf ears. An EU statement decreed that cucumbers could be bent by a gradient of no more than 1\/10 and that bananas must be \u2018free of abnormal curvature.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result \u2013 kilo upon kilo of perfectly good fruit and vegetables<\/a> that
couldnot be sold in the supermarkets as Class 1 produce. Thankfully we reformed this ridiculous rule in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll have a dozen eggs please<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Did you know that you can\u2019t actually buy a dozen eggs anymore? Actually, that\u2019s not strictly true. You can still buy 12 eggs, but thanks to the EU, they are now priced on weight rather than quantity. In grams rather than ounces, obviously \u2013 the only things permitted to be sold in imperial measures only are pints of beer \/lager\/cider or milk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interesting egg fact \u2013 it was between the World Wars<\/a> that egg cartons were developed. Before this they were sold from trays and carried in paper bags<\/a>. Someone discovered that eggs kept better if they were stored on their ends and \u2018hey presto!\u2019 the egg carton was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m so hungry I could eat a horse!<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Well, some people might well be put off the idea, especially after the \u2018Horsegate\u2019 scandal . Others just wouldn\u2019t do it. Of course, in some EU countries horse is eaten in the same way that Brits might eat<\/a> beef. But the EU introduced a law in 2009 to say that it\u2019s OK to eat a horse as long as it\u2019s not your pet….. no, really. It sounds crazy, but allegedly around two million pet horses are eaten across the EU each year \u2013 presumably not by their owners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stilton cheese? made in Stilton? I don\u2019t think so!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another anomaly for you: apparently Stilton cheese, made in the village of Stilton can\u2019t actually be called \u2018Stilton Cheese.\u2019 This is because it doesn\u2019t have EU Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The PDO status requires that only cheese produced in Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire and made to a strict code can be called \u2018Stilton.\u2019 Blue cheese made at The Blue Bell Inn in Stilton for generations has to be called \u2018Bell Blue\u2019 instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jam, spread or conserve?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Another EU rule, which was relaxed in 2013 concerns the sweet, tasty stuff you spread on toast, or scones, or use to sandwich a cake together. You know \u2013 jam! Before we dismissed the rule, manufacturers could only refer to their product as \u2018jam\u2019 if it contained more than 60% sugar. Anything with a sugar content of 50% – 60% had to be labelled \u2018conserve.\u2019 Anything with less than 50% was a \u2018fruit spread\u2019 in the EU\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mind you, in 1979, the EU passed a directive saying that carrots could be classed as fruit because the Portuguese made jam out of them (or should that be \u2018conserve\u2019?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course not all EU food rules are as crazy as the above. The majority are made to inform and protect consumers. For instance, EU labelling directives relating to the important issue of allergens are covered in our Managing Food Allergens in Manufacturing<\/a> course which takes place in November. We also offer labelling consultancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To find more, contact Claire or Karen on 01756 700802.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are you hoping Britain will remain in the EU? Are you hoping Britain will remain in the European Union (EU)? Or are you ready to say \u2018au revoir\u2019? Wherever your sympathies lie, there\u2019s no denying that some of laws they\u2019ve passed relating to food (or tried to) are slightly bizarre… Bendy bananas? Don\u2019t be daft! […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1096,1092,1093,782,237,1095,1094,475,30,38],"class_list":["post-5042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-safety-hygiene-news","tag-eu","tag-eu-food-regulations","tag-eu-labelling-regulations","tag-food-industry","tag-food-industry-training","tag-pdo","tag-protected-designation-of-origin","tag-specialist-training","tag-verner-wheelock","tag-vwa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vwa.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vwa.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vwa.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vwa.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vwa.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vwa.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vwa.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vwa.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vwa.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}