When the f*ck-wits have driven through a no-deal Brexit and screwed their country over in the name of knuckle-dragging nationalism what will they rename E-numbers?
Boris numbers? Farage numbers??
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No they will still be E numbers because we will be buying food from and selling food to the EU so all the E numbers will still be fully necessary and relevant to UK too, as will be the case for most other European standards too.
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And after Brexit UK will have to more fully comply with EU legislation than it has hitherto - which is why there are hundreds of civil sevants presently engaged in incorporating more EU law into UK legislation than ever before. And it is worse for the Crown Dependencies, which up to now had been much freer from EU legislation than the UK.
I think I can predict how this thread is going to end.
Might one dare to point out the āBRā in the six letter word. As far as I know Great Britain is neither a country or ātheirā country. To then talk about āknuckle-dragging nationalismā is magnificent comedy.
There Iāve started it L)
Personally Iād be happy for them to dispense with E numbers entirely and actually list the natural or chemical/artificial āingredientā directly instead.
Apart from classifying additives into groups you have to wonder if they were used simplyto reduce the amount of text on a label or to hide rather uncomprehensible (to most people) chemcial names which might make them think twice about what theyāre ingesting.
Unless youāre highly interested in additives, I doubt many people have a mental ready reckoner of all the hundreds of E numbers when theyāre out shopping, and the percentage of people who bother to look at ingredients is probably low anyway, especially for products they buy regularly from ātrustedā big brands.
Interesting too that several E additives are legal in the EU, but banned for example in the US (possibly for the wrong reasons if I were to be cynical) or have ābeing re-evaluatedā in the EU status listed.
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Interestingly, just looking at a bottle of Schweppes slimline lemonade, ingredients are listed sensibly under categories such as Acidity Regulators and Sweeteners with the constituents names in parentheses - no E numbers in sight, does this reflect the product may be manufactured by a non-EU company?
UK Food Labelling Regulations require use of name or serial number (=āEā number), so either can be used (and no prohibition on using both). It is up to the manufacturer.
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It doesnāt matter whether itās an EU company or not, if the product is āplaced on the marketā ie sold in the EU, then the labelling regulations have to be met. Thatās why you wonāt see an alternative UK labelling scheme anytime soon, because it would prevent the sale of the products into the EU, whether we are EU members or not.
Of course there is nothing to stop us deciding, post-Boris, to require the additional labelling of āMade desperately in Lesser Britain, formerly known proudly as Great Britainā.
Best
David
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Does IBās comment above extend to the EU?
Could that bottle of lemonade I mention be sold in Germant without explicitly listing E numbers for sodium citrate, citric acid, aspartame, sodium saccharin, potassium sorbate and ascorbic acid which mean far more to me than a list of E numbers?
E numbers are surely just a classification, and could still be used whether weāre part of Europe or not?
Just saying that E numbers are not the biggest concern Iād have about Brexit, we could presumably still use them anyway. I suspect the OPs post was a little tongue in cheek.
I think the OPās post was indeed tongue in cheek!
Anyone from UK to France to Germany to New Zealand to anywhere else can only sell in Germany if they abide by the EU labelling regulations, which as I understand it require ingredients to be listed with E numbers of chemical names as the person āplacing on the EU marketā prefers. So we can continue to use them or not. But we couldnāt invent eg āFarage numbersā and still sell those products to the EU unless we also add E numbers or chemical names. Thatās why we will go on using E numbers in UK.
Best
David
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Indeed that is the case - though in fact the EUās Labelling requirements were originally modelled on the UKās, and in reality there is very little the UK would want to do with them that is different from what the EU wants.
Yes. My reference to UK was irrelevant.
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If a ship passed throught the straights of Gibraltar containing foodstuffs that werenāt labelled with the required E numbers, would the EU be within the law to impound the ship, even if the ship was not bound for a none EU member state. IE. Syria.
Itās only an offence to āplace on the EU marketā food that is not properly labelled. So there would be no problem taking a ship full of wrongly labelled food into the Med. But if you did it often, depending where it ended up, you might find yourself having a discussion with customs officials.
The oil for Syria is quite different because that is a breach of sanctions on Syria, not on importing into the EU.
Canāt do that that would mean it French (lesser Britain is Bretagne aka Brittany!).
We cant have French imports, theyāe EU demagogues - they may be trying to poison us!
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