Monday, February 26, 2007

Swallowing your Greens. That's ratings.

Eco-label will create green standard for food, says Miliband

Will this be run alongside the one from the other retailers, which will be designed to tell a very different set of stories and totally flummox the consumer? Instead of traffic lights what will we have? Eco-stars? Green thumbs up? They are going to have to make the packs bigger at this rate (oh, the irony)! How many lobbyists, consultants and 'experts' will feed off this one for the next decade. Ship-borne dried apricots vs. airflown prawns vs. Spuds shunted from one end of the UK for scrubbing and then back to be deemed 'local' to where they are bought.

And are we going to have sub-sets where there is what is good for local farming, the local MP, the national purse, global environment, targets, media ratings and all the various pulls on green issues that can often be... at odds. Me, I vote less CO2... and unproductive civil servants and other talk-onlys to monitor and debate it all.

This is actually a great idea in principle, but when I see a PR piece floated telling me only something 'will be announced that is to considered' I have to wonder what exactly is going to be done at all, if ever.

For a change.

DEFRA - Mr. Miliband's Speech
Telegraph - 'Traffic light' labels backed by parents
Marketing Week - Parents reject GDA labelling system
BBC - Public want food 'traffic lights'

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