Food on the Web 10

Citation

Fallows, S. (1999), "Food on the Web 10", British Food Journal, Vol. 101 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/bfj.1999.070101aag.001

Food on the Web 10

Food on the Web 10

Introduction

This article focuses on Web sites which operate to provide information on three initiatives:

A research initiative at (UK) national level.

A food legislation initiative at European Union (EU) level.

A trade control programme operated world-wide by an international agency.

Web site reviews

The Nation's DietIn 1992, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) launched a major, six-year, social science research programme into the nation's diet. The ª1.6 million programme has now been completed and the results from the 18 funded projects are becoming available.

The funded projects focused as follows.

Phase I began in 1992 with projects on the following themes:

• •

  Concepts of healthy eating: a comparative anthropological investigation (phase 1).

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  Dietary change among South Asians and Italians in Glasgow.

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  Teaching and learning about food and nutrition in schools.

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  The effect on the family of one member's change in diet.

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  The effects of life stress on food choice.

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  The psychological determinants of children's food preferences.

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  The role of the media in the emergence of food panics.

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  What we eat and why: a socio-economic study of standard items in food consumption.

Phase 2 began in 1994 with projects on the following themes:

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  Ambivalence about health-related dietary change.

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  Concepts of healthy eating: a comparative anthropological investigation (phase 2).

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  Constructing the consumer interest: retailing, regulation and food quality.

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  Consumption, diet and ageing: the construction of food choice in later life.

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  Eating out and eating in: households and food choice.

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  Food choices made by mothers on behalf of babies and young children.

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  The decision not to eat meat: an analysis of changing preferences.

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  The marriage menu -- food and diet in transition after marriage.

A final phase of the programme appointed two Research Fellows to work on the following themes:

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  After the store wars/return to the high street? Changing conditions of competition and regulation in UK food retailing.

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  Employment status, domestic situation and food choice.

The programme Web site provides an overview description of the entire initiative and summaries of each of the 18 funded projects as listed above. The summaries follow a common format using the headings:

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  Rationale.

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  Objectives.

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  Study design.

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  Main findings.

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  Selected publications.

In addition to the project based descriptions (above) the site provides a comprehensive bibliography of all the publications and other communications which have been derived from the research programme.

The site also provides a link to the Economic and Social Research Council which funded the research.

The URL is http://www.sbu.ac.uk/~natdi

Monitoring of official control of foodstuffs Directives

The Official Control of Foodstuffs Directives (89/297/EEC and 93/99/EEC) concern the European wide co-ordination of the enforcement of food legislation and related controls. Article 5 of the 1993 Directive requests that the European Commission monitor and evaluate the "equivalence and effectiveness" of the official food control systems operated by the relevant authorities of the different Member States.

The European Commission has published, on the DG24 Web site, the full text of reports from its Foodstuffs Assessment Team which provide information concerning Phase 1 (1995-97) visits to all 15 European Union Member States to examine compliance. (The full text of each report may be downloaded in Adobe Acrobat Format.)

Phase 1 visits sought to gather the following information:

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  Legal powers in matters relating to food control, notably the power to take appropriate measures in the event of health hazards.

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  Policy, education and adoption of priorities in regard to official control.

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  Details on the resources allocated to the official control system (budget, staff, equipment).

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  Relations between the central authorities and the authorities implementing the controls.

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  Measures taken to ensure that central legislation and policies are correctly implemented on the ground.

The reports are structured typically as follows:

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  Review of the mandate for the visiting group.

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  Summary of the legal system and infrastructure. This covers matters such as priorities, resources, staffing and includes examples of the system in operation.

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  Consideration of the food control laboratories.

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  Conclusions

The URL to access the individual reports on each of the 15 Member States and also an overview review report is http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg24/health/afh/afh05_en.html

More recently, the European Commission has begun to publish reports from Phase 2 (1998) visits to Member States to examine compliance with the 1993 Directive.

The purpose of the Phase 2 visits has been to:

• •

  collect information concerning any amendments to the legislation and policy concerning food control since the initial visit;

• •

  examine the system in place for the official control of foodstuffs not of animal origin.

The first three reports on Phase 2 (posted to the Web site in October 1998) deal with control in the following countries:

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  The Netherlands

• •

  United Kingdom

• •

  Spain.

The full report for each country can be downloaded (as a file in Adobe Acrobat format).

Each of these reports provides:

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  Reminder of the Commission mandate on such visits.

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  Details of the control arrangements and legislation which apply within the country.

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  Consideration of food import controls.

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  central arrangements;

• •

  reports on visits to selected sites of importation, food handling premises and relevant laboratories.

Conclusions and recommendations

The URL to access the three reports above is http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg24/health/afh/afh06_en.html

Further reports will be added in due course as these become available.

World Trade Organisation

The World Trade Organisation was set up on 1 January 1995 as a consequence of the Uruguay Round negotiations of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) with the following functions:

• •

  To administer international trade agreements.

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  To serve as a forum for international trade negotiations.

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  To handle trade disputes.

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  To monitor national trade policies.

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  To provide technical assistance and training for developing countries.

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  To cooperate with other international agencies.

A (food related) example of the work of the WTO was its ruling in respect of the dispute between the USA, Canada and other countries regarding the EU prohibition on sales of any beef from cattle treated with implants of growth promoting hormones. The report of this ruling was released early in 1998.

The WTO ruling accepted the substantive arguments behind the EU prohibition. The WTO's Appellate Body ruled that:

• •

  The EU has the right to establish, on a scientific basis, the level of consumer protection which it feels appropriate and which is higher than the level resulting from international health standards.

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  The EU ban was not inconsistent with other EU policies.

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  The hormone ban is not based on a risk assessment because the scientific studies do not focus specifically on residues in meat of hormone-treated cattle. (The European Commission must now examine this matter carefully in order to establish how to implement the EU obligation to undertake appropriate risk assessments.)

The full texts (several hundred pages each) of the very detailed WTO Panel Reports on each of the cases brought by the USA and Canada are available via the Internet on the World Trade Organisation Web site.

The URL for the WTO is http://www.wto.org

The site may be viewed in English, French or Spanish.

Concluding comment

Although the three organisations represented by the Web sites reviewed in this article are quite different in their objectives, they have a common theme of ''Co-operation'';

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  The Nation's Diet is a co-operative research programme which seeks to yield a greater understanding of the social factors which determine the nature of the UK diet.

• •

  The monitoring of the official control of food in the different Member States of the European Union has the objective of maintaining equivalence of control in the interests of furthering the development of the European Single Market.

• •

  The work of the World Trade Organisation is to move world trade arrangements away from situations of tension and dispute and towards circumstances in which the barriers to international trade are removed as far as is possible.

If you have identified a Web site likely to be of interest to readers of the British Food Journal please contact the author of this series of articles as follows:E-mail: stephen.fallows@luton.ac.uk fax 01234 766926 or 01582 743237; post at the University of Luton.

Stephen FallowsUniversity of Luton