On 26th May I tabled an amendment (New Clause 28) to the Environment Bill, which would require food miles to be listed on products to enable consumers to make accurate environmentally conscious decisions about food purchases.
It is clear that people are not given the right information about where their food is coming from – labelling should make it easy for people to make decisions about what they choose to buy, providing clear and balanced information about food miles.
My amendment would ensure food packaging state the food miles travelled, defined as the distance travelled from the country, or in the case of domestically produced food the region, of origin. The amendment also allows provision for a similar type of colour coding to that we see on the nutritional information on food – green would mean low food miles, amber would be medium, and red would indicate a long distance travelled. It would mean companies could choose understandable, easily recognisable ways of presenting this information.
Read the full wording of my Amendment below!
