In the Middle Ages, it is clear that the concept of safe food was of utmost importance; some historians say that they drank wine instead of water, since the latter was contaminated. For almost all ...age groups, a positive referral of a product or service from a seemingly impartial (?) person can be the final motivation needed for a potential customer to make a purchase. To guarantee the effectiveness of an influencer, the following three premises are often taken into account17: ● Their ability to generate opinions and reactions in other users when talking about a specific topic (they are characterised by their ability to generate conversation about a topic or brand). ● The potential of an influencer’s audience around a specific topic (followers are more valuable in quality than in quantity). ● The level of participation in the conversation about the topic in question (the involvement of an influencer in the action is fundamental to guarantee success). ...using social media in a visual and engaging way can lead to an exchange of recipes with ingredients that young people don’t reject, with food colours that can be retouched to highlight a healthier style that encourages consumer to try it24.
According to a survey carried out by Nielsen4 (2015) based on respondents with online access in 60 countries, one quarter of them indicated that they order grocery products online and more than half ...are willing to do that in the future. ... The applicability of this exemption from liability will depend on the legal and factual elements related to the activity carried out by the platform in question and will be applied when the activities carried out can be qualified as services of mere transmission or storage according to the terms of the “Directive on electronic commerce”2. ...their actuation must be strictly technical, automatic and passive. ...to determine what is the responsibility of the platforms that are the object of this study in terms of protecting the health and economic interests of consumers, in the absence of a Lex specialis, I must make reference to Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 laying down the general principles and requirements of food law6. ...prices and margins have decreased as digitization enables new business models and sales are concentrated on fewer but larger players. -
Brexit was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020. The UK is the only member state to have left the EU, after 47 years of having been a ...part of the union — the EU and its predecessor the European Communities (EC), which included the European Economic Community — since 1 January 1973. Following Brexit, EU law and the Court of Justice of the European Union no longer have primacy over British laws, except in select areas in relation to Northern Ireland. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 retains relevant EU law as domestic law, which the UK can now amend or repeal. This article is dedicated to a first analysis of the impact of Brexit on the food supply chain, taking into account the precariousness of the agreement on the status of Northern Ireland, the workers’ emigration and the future of British regulations, probably more competitive than that the old EU legislation.
Fake News in the Food Sector Vaqué, Luis González
European food and feed law review,
2018, Volume:
13, Issue:
5
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
...most Fake News is emotional in nature and seeks to upset, annoy or scare us. Underlines the importance of investment in infrastructure in both urban and rural areas; stresses that fair competition ...ensures investment in quality high-speed broadband services; stresses that affordable access to and full deployment of reliable high-speed infrastructure, such as ultrafast connections and telecommunications, fosters the supply and use of online platform services; stresses the need for net neutrality and fair and non-discriminatory access to online platforms as a prerequisite for innovation and a truly competitive market; urges the Commission to streamline the funding schemes for related initiatives facilitating the digitisation process, in order to use the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) and Horizon 2020 (H2020) and the contributions from Member States' national budgets; calls on the Commission to assess the potential of public-private partnerships (PPPs) and Joint Technology Initiatives (JTIs).’ … ...technological advances in online communication have increased the potential for disseminating Fake News immeasurably (often under the guise of anonymity and in ways that make it hard to trace). ...globalisation means that information of every kind (including Fake News) can reach the five continents at the speed of light. Platforms Should: Develop tools to share standard information sheets to users developed by independent (educational) institutions within media and information literacy programs, raising awareness of digital disinformation and emerging findings about digital risks. v. News Media Organisations Should: Cooperate with CSOs and academia to formulate and implement skill and age-specific media and information literacy approaches, and for all ages, while pursuing their media literacy projects in cooperation with schools and other educational institutions that target younger generations; Subject to funding, notably from outside sources, continue investing in quality journalisms and equip newsrooms with professional automatic content verification tools for audio-visual and text-based reports spread online; Ensure the highest levels of compliance with ethical and professional standards to sustain a pluralistic and trustworthy news media ecosystem. 1See Tandoc, E. C. Jr, “Defining ‘Fake News’ - A typology of scholarly definitions”, Digital Journalism, Vol.6, No. 2, 2018, 137-153; and Vidreras Pérez, C., “Fake News y escándalos alimentarios en la UE”, BoDiAlCO, No. 30, 2018, 33-34.
...this assessment should carefully study the effect that the different options would have on the internal market, the relevant economic sectors, the needs of consumers and the real use of the ...information in question, as well as the effects on international trade. According to the spirits sector, another advantage to offering off-label information is that more detailed information can be provided, in a more flexible way and adapted to the needs of individual consumers. ...only additives that are not considered processing aids in the wine-making process, as defined in the OIV recommendations and in other work in progress, shall be included in the list of ingredients according to Article 20 of Regulation 1169/2011. ...the annex that concerns me most is that of the important wine and aromatised wine sectors (section 4 of the third part of this article): I believe that this contradicts, or at least devalues, the commitments I have outlined in section 2, also in the third part. 1Council Directive 79/112/EEC of 18 December 1978 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the labelling, presentation and advertising of foodstuffs for sale to the ultimate consumer (OJ L 33, 8.2.1979, p. 1).
Since its entry into force, the interpretation of Regulation No 1169/2011 has not been easy, which is why the European Commission has had to publish, in addition to the Notice we have already ...mentioned, the following documents: 31 January 2013: ...I will deal with the content of the interesting proposal for the ‘self-regulation’ of the labelling of the origin of milk and milk products published in March 2018 by the European Dairy Association (EDA). ...the Directive maintained the principle that it was mandatory to indicate on the label the place of origin or provenance in the cases where failure to give such particulars might mislead the consumer to a material degree as to the true origin or provenance of the foodstuff. According to the general approach, if a food business operator decides to voluntarily label the origin of a product, the primary ingredient (for example, milk and/or milk ingredient) should come from the same Member State or region.
C:2018:196:FULL Guidance document for competent authorities, tolerances for the control of compliance of nutrient values declared on a label with EU legislation: ...https://ec.europa.eu/food/sites/food/files/safety/docs/labelling_nutrition-vitamins_minerals-guidance_tolerances_1212_en.pdf A simplified summary table gives an overview of the different tolerance values included in the guidance document. In case of doubt the guidance document text should be consulted as the official reference: https://ec.europa.eu/food/sites/food/files/safety/docs/labelling_nutrition-vitamins_minerals-guidance_tolerances_summary_table_012013_en.pdf Guidance document for competent authorities, methods of analysis for the determination of the fibre content declared on a label for the control of compliance with EU legislation: https://ec.europa.eu/food/sites/food/files/safety/docs/labelling_legislation_guidance_methods_2012_en.pdf 2. Italy has developed a scheme called ‘NutrInform Battery’, which has not been implemented yet13.» Besides public schemes, some private schemes are present on the EU market such as the Reference Intakes Label or the Healthy Choice logo. For my part I would add that, in France, supermarkets "INTERMARCHE" have announced their intention to use a logo (Figure 1) that without including nutritional information, can be another obstacle to the free movement of food within the European Union: In a very ambiguous way it is concluded that the Commission’s Report provided an overview of the main findings of a literature review carried out by the Joint Research Centre concerning the effects and potential impacts of front-of-pack schemes.
The current challenge of agriculture is to ensure sustainability, noting that in the next half century we must produce as much food as in the previous ten thousand years combined. At the same time, ...we should improve crop resilience, in an unquestionable scenario of climate change. The World Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) urges us to achieve food security, which is the situation in which everybody has physical and economic access to sufficient, safe nutritious food at all times, to satisfy their nutritional needs and preferences, in order to lead an active and healthy life. In recent years we have seen an exponential increase in the knowledge of the molecular basis of genetic traits that are important for food production. Some of these technologies have been developed in Europe, and benefit producers from other parts of the world, from whom our countries then import their products for our consumption. It has been possible to increase the micronutrient content of fruit, delay their ripening or incorporate resistance to viruses, fungi and bacteria. Thus, using tools borrowed from bacterial defence mechanisms (CRISPR-Cas9 and derivatives), it is possible to act in a controlled and timely manner on the desired areas of DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid), as could be the case in the fight against TR4 fungus in the banana. This crop occupies about ten million hectares with an annual production of one-hundred million tons. It is part of the basic diet of four-hundred million people and is cultivated in all tropical and subtropical regions constituting the fourth food crop only behind rice, wheat and corn. No fungicide has been found that allows chemical control of the fungus that remains in infected soils for periods exceeding thirty years, so it is urgent to obtain new resistant varieties. This document aims to sensitize society and legislators about the importance of science and technology, with a sustainable global food system approach (availability, policies, economy and culture) to meet the food challenges of the 21st century.
...the Council of the European Union "supports efforts of all actors to reduce food waste, which will contribute to achieving Sustainable Development Goal ..., which aims at halving per capita global ...food waste at the retail and consumer level, and reducing food losses along production and supply chains including post-harvest losses by 2030"4. ...an interesting and timely special report published at the end of last year by the European Court of Auditors (ECA)5 entitled "Combating Food Waste: an opportunity for the EU to improve the resource-efficiency of the food supply chain"6 (hereinafter the "ECA food waste report") confirms that high level political statements have not been translated into suitable measures. ...the ECA specifically states in its first recommendation that "the EU efforts to combat food waste should be strengthened and better coordinated; in doing this the EU could take a greater role in the appropriate forums at a global level. 25 Regulation (EU) of the European Parliament and of the Council of 2 5 October 2011 on the provision of food information to consumers, amending Regulations (EC) No 1 924/2006 and (EC) No 1 925/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council, and repealing Commission Directive 87/250/EEC, Council Directive 90/496/EEC, Commission Directive 1999/10/EC, Directive 2000/1 3/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, Commission Directives 2002/67/EC and 2008/5/EC and Commission Regulation (EC) No 608/2004 (OJ L 304, 22.1 1.201 1, p. 18). For the FAO, food loss is the decrease in quantity or quality of food reflected in...
