Overall Goals
The Label My Food campaign has five main aims, each targeting an
area of the food chain:
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To increase consumer awareness of food and
drink ingredients, preparation and sourcing.
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To encourage eateries to provide thorough and accurate labelling
of all food and drinks on offer.
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To encourage manufacturers, distributors and
supermarkets to label their products properly.
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To lobby governments and official organisations
to introduce improved mandatory labelling.
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To encourage farmers to provide full information
about their crops and animals.
How can this be achieved?
Clearly this is a mammoth job, and as with all such missions can
only be achieved by breaking it into smaller, achievable chunks:
Restaurants, Pubs, Cafes
and other Eateries.
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Mail shots to restaurants, pubs and
cafes
The higher end eateries are more likely to want and need to
adapt to the growing demands of the dietary minorities that
Label My Food represents. These places will be targeted with
a direct mail shot where finances allow.
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Direct campaigning in restaurants, pubs and cafes
The next step is to encourage Label My Food members to directly
target their local food suppliers with leaflets, stickers and
conversations. The more people who walk in and ask "Do
you use free range eggs?", "Where do you source your
vegetables from?" and "None of your dishes have any
allergy labelling on, why not?", the quicker they will
get the message.
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Make a strong business case
Businesses, as well as wanting to respond to consumer pressure,
will react well to a strong business case being put to them.
The campaign will provide a series of specialised leaflets targeting
specific types of businesses (such as cafes, pubs etc) and explaining
to them why they are losing custom at the moment, and how they
can easily and cheaply improve their menus. We will also attempt
to provide icons and pre-written text for businesses to copy
and past into their menus.
- Reward businesses that make the change
Those businesses that make the switch and begin to label their
food properly should be promoted wherever possible, perhaps through
newspaper announcements, local leafleting, free web promotion
and so on. Clear benefits will encourage other businesses to follow
suit.
Government
There are two principle governments to lobby on
the issue of labelling. The first is the British Government. MPs
are constantly bombarded with complaints and requests, so we will
need to have a strong message to attract their attention, as well
as providing them with a positive, popular brand that they will
be happy to associate their name with.
The European Union should also be targeted heavily.
In fact, because EU law supersedes British law, if the EU makes
proper labelling a requirement, the British Government will be irrelevant
(since they are obliged to implement all EU laws and regulations,
even if they don't agree with them). Although lobbying of MEPs is
probably worthwhile, it is the unelected Commissioners who hold
the power (they are the only people allowed to propose new legislation).
There is a good summary page of the EU situation here:
http://europa.eu/scadplus/leg/en/s16600.htm
There are some specific legal targets that Label
My Food will campaign for:
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Beverage Labelling
Strangely alcoholic drinks aren't required to list their ingredients
and state whether they are vegetarian or not. We will campaign
for all drinks to be brought under the standardised labelling
systems required for all other food that necessitates ingredient
listing. Obviously in addition to this we will be seeking to
ensure that this includes labelling of vegetarian and vegan
products. We will also seek to ensure that manufacturers have
to include details of any animal products used in the preparation
(even if they aren't present in the final product).
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Extend labelling laws
At the moment labelling laws only apply to pre-packaged food,
but not to food prepared in restaurants, pubs, cafes, take-aways,
bakeries, holiday chalets, airlines, trains, buses, motorway
services, teashops, burger vans, hotels, conference centres
and sandwich shops.
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Battery farmed egg labelling
Instead of simply stating 'eggs' on the packaging, we want ingredient
lists to specify 'free range' or 'battery farmed'. This is an
important piece of information for many consumers. Later, we
might seek to extend this to other meat and dairy produce, so
that products would have to state 'contains battery farmed pork'
for example.
Consumers
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Build public awareness
As well as targeting businesses, we need to encourage the general
public to start thinking about their food in different ways.
This is already happening thanks to the changing attitude in
the media towards organic food, environmental issues and general
health concerns. However, it is happening too slowly and in
a haphazard manner. We need a coordinated, simple message to
educate the public.
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Door to door leafleting
This can be very effective, and relatively cheap. People tend
to read leaflets posted through their door (as long as there
isn't an election on!), so as long as there are people who want
a bit of exercise and have some spare time this is the best
direct campaigning method.
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Campaigning stalls
Stalls can be set up wherever the public collects, including
town centres, fetes, car boot sales, festivals and so on. Don't
forget to get permission first though.
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Media advertising
Advertising in newspapers, websites, magazines and so on can
be very expensive, but if funds allow this may be suitable for
localised targeted campaigns.
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Letter writing
There is free advertising available in newspapers via the letters
pages. Occasional topical letters can really make a difference.
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News commentary
Journalists often use a trusted source for commentary on specific
subjects. We will aim to become such a source for food related
news stories by issuing up to date press releases and public
statements. This will require 24 hour news vigilance, as well
as spotting stories that are about to break, or even providing
our own news items for journalists.
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Social Engineering
Like all social movements, we will aim to shift the public consciousness
through the introduction of new terminology (such as "dietary
minorities" and "free range vegetarians") and
making it less and less acceptable for businesses to discriminate
against people with specialist food requirements. We will also
seek to constantly remind people that the food they are buying
has many potential impacts in terms of animal welfare and environmental
damage.
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Promote Label My Food membership
We will encourage as many people as possible to sign up as members
of Label My Food. The more members we have, the more seriously
we will be taken by the media .
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Celebrity endorsements
No campaign would be complete without some celebrity endorsements.
If you know a celeb looking to back a good cause, please ask
them to get in touch.
Farmers
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Introduce a new "Animal Friendly" standard
Food labelled as 'suitable for vegetarians' often contains battery
farmed eggs and food is often mislabelled as vegetarian. On
top of that, and perhaps even more importantly, there is no
widely used standard that the public recognise as representing
free range meat. Battery farmed meat features in the vast majority
of meals eaten out, but consumers pay almost no attention to
where it comes from. Hopefully a new standard will encourage
the public to refuse to eat in places that don't use free range
produce.
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Introduce a new "Environment Friendly" standard
There is currently very little emphasis on the environmental
impact of food. We want a new standard to take into consideration
the transport distances of the ingredients, as well as the post
production transport. There have been attempts at this already
using 'food miles' and 'carbon footprints', but the systems
are complicated and confusing for consumers. The food industry
needs a single authoritative standard that can be applied to
food that is locally sourced and produced, and takes into consideration
the packaging.
- This may be combined with an attempt to standardise the "Produce
of Britain" labelling. There is now a high level of mistrust
of such claims due to the deliberate deception from some suppliers
claiming that items are British based only on their point of processing
and not on their point of origin. We want a combined label that
assures customers that a product is reared/grown and
processed in Britain.
Manufacturers,
Distributors and Supermarkets
British leather labelling
For both animal welfare and environmental issues, we will attempt
to introduce a new leather labelling system for British goods, and
to encourage the public to refuse to buy any leather goods that
aren't guaranteed to be made from cattle grown, slaughtered and
processed in Britain.
If you have any more ideas, please do share them; we will welcome
all constructive feedback. If you haven't already joined, you can
register
for free >> |
