Citation and commencement

1.  These Regulations may be cited as the Food Labelling (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2003 and shall come into operation on 21st April 2003.

Amendment of the Food Labelling Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996

2.  The Food Labelling Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996(4) shall be amended in accordance with regulations 3 to 5.

3.  In regulation 14 (names of ingredients) there shall be substituted for paragraph (4) the following paragraph –

“(4) A generic name which is listed in or referred to in column 1 of Part I of Schedule 3 may be used for an ingredient which is specified in the corresponding entry in column 2 of that Part of that Schedule in accordance with any conditions that are laid down in the corresponding entry in column 3 of that Part of that Schedule.”.

4.  In regulation 50 (transitional provision) there shall be inserted at the end the following paragraph –

“(10) In any proceedings for an offence under regulation 44(a), it shall be a defence to prove that –

(a)the food concerned was sold before 1st July 2003 or marked or labelled before that date; and

(b)the matters constituting the offence would not have constituted an offence under these Regulations if the amendments made by regulations 3 and 5 of the Food Labelling (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2003 had not been in operation when the food was sold.”.

5.  In Schedule 3 (generic names in list of ingredients) –

(a)there shall be inserted at the beginning the following heading –

“PART I

general”;

(b)after the entries relating to herb, herbs, or mixed herbs, the following entries shall be inserted in column 1 (generic name), column 2 (ingredients) and column 3 (conditions of use of generic name) respectively –

(c)there shall be inserted at the end the following Part –

“PART IImaximum fat and connective tissue contents for ingredients for which the generic name meat or equivalent as referred to in part i is used

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations.)

These Regulations, which amend the Food Labelling Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996, as amended (“the principal Regulations”), implement Commission Directive 2001/101/EC (O.J. No. L310, 28.11.2001, p. 19) as amended by Commission Directive 2002/86/EC (O.J. No. L305, 7.11.2002, p. 19). Directive 2001/101/EC amends Directive 2000/13/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the labelling, presentation and advertising of foodstuffs. The Regulations allow use of the generic name “meat” with the name of the animal species from which it comes (or equivalent terms such as “pork” or “beef”) for skeletal muscles of mammalian and bird species in ingredients lists, subject to certain conditions (regulations 2, 3 and 5). The rules in regulation 19 of the principal Regulations on indications of quantities of certain ingredients or categories of ingredients apply in respect of that generic name. These Regulations also insert a transitional provision in respect of that generic name in implementation of Directive 2002/86/EC for food sold before 1st July 2003 (regulation 4).