Ahead of the publication of the Government’s forthcoming National Food Strategy (NFS), food systems expert, Honor May Eldridge, reviews the Consortium for Labelling for the Environment, Animal Welfare and Regenerative Farming’s (CLEAR) ambitious proposal for the NFS to call for ‘method of production’ labelling to become mandatory for all meat products in the UK.
More and more of us want to make informed, ethical choices about the food we buy, and these choices inevitably reflect our concerns about the environmental impacts of food production and animal welfare. The SFT’s recent report, Grazing Livestock: It’s not the cow, but the how, demonstrates how, in relation to meat and dairy, the method of production makes a huge difference when it comes to the environment, animal welfare and much beyond. Consequently, it is critical that farmers who invest in better production methods are rewarded for that investment by the marketplace. Seventy-five per cent of UK consumers say they want supermarkets to stock only sustainably and ethically sourced food, and they’ve consistently called for more transparency about how meat is produced.
That’s where CLEAR comes in. The Consortium for Labelling for the Environment, Animal Welfare and Regenerative Farming, of which the Sustainable Food Trust is a founding member, wants to see national legislation to deliver transparent, verifiable food labelling that clearly communicates how food is produced. It is pushing for this to be a commitment within the forthcoming National Food Strategy (NFS). Defra is scheduled to publish the NFS in the autumn, which will lay out the Government’s vision to reshape the country’s food system to be healthier, more sustainable and resilient. The Strategy will guide the future of the UK food system and will (hopefully) pave the way for a Food Bill for England. CLEAR is pushing for the NFS to call for ‘method of production’ labelling to become mandatory for all meat products in the UK.
This focus is a continuation of the excellent work that CLEAR has done since its founding in 2021 when it brought together leading NGOs in the food and farming space to lobby the Government for better labelling. In 2021, CLEAR launched its manifesto at Groundswell with the aim of empowering consumers with meaningful information, bringing real transparency to the food system. Clear, consistent labelling will help people understand what lies behind the products they buy. Many of us have stood in a supermarket, holding a carton of milk, only to be confronted by a sea of labels – organic, non-GMO, fairtrade, free range. But what do they all mean? And how do they compare? For most shoppers, it’s unclear.
CLEAR’s vision includes a mandatory method of production labelling for all foods sold in the UK, including imports, underpinned by strong enforcement mechanisms. It calls for independent assessment processes that are based on verifiable benchmarks, ensuring the integrity of any claims made. Crucially, the labelling must be clear and accessible, appearing directly on packaging so that shoppers can make informed choices at a glance. It is also vital to build the enforcement capacity needed to support these measures and make the system effective.
At a recent event hosted by CLEAR and the SFT to launch CLEAR’s ecolabelling review report, the authors highlighted some of the challenges of capturing farm environmental impacts on food labels. One theme which kept cropping up was the need for data that truly reflects the farming system that it describes – this usually means holistic, primary, outcome-based data. This is the type of data that the Global Farm Metric (GFM) focusses on. This data provides the truest reflection of farm sustainability, although it does require time and it does have a financial cost. The GFM team continues to work with the food labelling sector to explore how this type of data can feed into more transparent labelling efforts.
While its proposal is ambitious, CLEAR acknowledges the complexities of the current context. The UK’s departure from the European Union has left the food and farming sector in a state of flux. The UK is in the process of negotiating its phytosanitary (plant health) standards with the EU, and that negotiation will also involve consideration of labelling. The outcome will be critical for the future of the UK food system. At the bare minimum, the UK needs mandatory animal welfare labelling for poultry and pork that focuses specifically on method-of-production, strengthening country of origin labelling requirements, and establishing a regulatory basis for sustainability terms to ensure they are used meaningfully and consistently.
As the UK redefines its food system, now is the moment to ensure that transparency and integrity are placed at its core. Mandatory method of production labelling isn’t just a technical fix – it’s a vital tool for empowering consumers to make informed choices, rewarding farmers who adopt higher animal welfare and sustainable practices, and driving meaningful change in how our food is produced. With the National Food Strategy on the horizon, it’s time to embed CLEAR labelling into the future of UK food policy.
