Warning over 'local' produce labels

Almost a fifth of foods labelled as "local" on sale in England and Wales are making the claim falsely, a study has revealed.

"Welsh lamb" from New Zealand, "Somerset butter" from Scotland, "Devon ham" from Denmark and "West Country fish fillets" - where fish is caught in the West Country but filleted in China - are some examples of items found to be misleading consumers.

The survey also found cases where ice cream being marketed as "local" was actually a well-known brand, "fresh local cream" was a really cream substitute containing vegetable fat and "Yorkshire chillies" in chilli sausage were supermarket-bought.

The Local Government Regulation (LGR) - which oversees council regulation - carried out the inspections, testing 558 products labelled as "local" in 300 shops, restaurants, markets and manufacturers.

Of these, 18 per cent of "local" claims were, according to the LGR, "undoubtedly false", with a further 14 per cent unverifiable and therefore assumed to be false.

At 19 per cent, restaurants had the highest incidence of false claims while manufacturers had the fewest with 11 per cent.

LGR chairman Cllr Paul Bettison called the results "extremely worrying", adding: "Councils are working with businesses to make sure consumers have the information they need and that they are not being ripped off.

"Many people want to support local businesses or choose food that has not travelled from the other side of the world, so it is vital that they have accurate information to help them make their choices."

While there is currently no legal definition of the term "local" in food labelling legislation, the Food Law Code of Practice states that it should mean "sales within the supplying establishment's own county plus the greater of either the neighbouring county or counties or 30 miles/50 kilometres from the boundary of the supplying establishment's county".