in the face of rising commodity prices, manufacturers allowed to “adapt”

in the face of rising commodity prices manufacturers allowed to

Food and energy prices, whose rise has been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, could remain high until 2024, estimates the World Bank. According to the institution, this is the biggest commodity shock we have seen since the 1970s and sunflower oil is hit hard. Faced with this shortage, France has authorized manufacturers to replace sunflower oil in their products for six months without modifying the packaging.

Sunflower oil is mainly exported from Russia and Ukraine. And to face this war-related shortagemanufacturers will have rules to follow in France so as not to mislead the consumer.

Camille Dorioz of the NGO Foodwatch France, asks distributors to go further to avoid headaches on the shelves: ” In terms of the rules in terms of the information that there will be, when you have an allergen which is going to be added and which is not reported, then you have a sticker which is added immediately because there is no procrastinating with consumer health. The other is that when there are claims like packaging that says “palm oil free” on them that are no longer true because there will be palm oil inside the product, there too, we will have to put up stickers to warn the consumer that the allegation is no longer true. »

Read also: The world market for edible oils turned upside down by the war in Ukraine

Allow consumers easy access to information

But there are also all the rest of the products on which there will be changes, insists the NGO Foodwatch France. And on these products, there is no obligation to display directly on the product. To find the information directly, the consumer will have to go to the fraud prevention website to find in the list whether the product is present or not.

We all know that we don’t do our shopping while being on the fraud prevention website, that’s why we ask distributors to allow consumers to access this information more simply. , directly on the shelves, at least in stores, because not everyone has a smartphone, because not everyone has access to the internet, but everyone must have access to this information », Estimates Camille Dorioz.

Read also: Covid, Ukraine, inflation: in France, crisis-proof food solidarity

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