Why food labels feel like a scam

In my local supermarket, there are at least a couple of shelves dedicated to “nature” products. I take a pack of chicken wings: a label shouts in capital letters that what will probably be my dinner tonight is organic and was pasture-raised, with due respect for animal and environmental welfare. In another store, I set my eyes on some anchovy filets: on the tin is a bright blue rectangle, where a stylised fish swims peacefully beneath the words “sustainable fishing”. What do these statements actually mean? Probably not much, given Europe has no standard way of assessing and communicating the environmental impact of food. In 2024, the European Court of Auditors warned that food labels in the EU are confusing and misleading, for example when a product is branded as “natural” with no evidence or explanation. This applies to claims about food's healthiness and its environmental impact: there are more than 200 different sustainability labels across the EU. “For most products, there is no sustainability information available,” Koen Boone, research coordinator for sustainable value chains at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, told us. “There is also no information on how to compare different product categories, so, for example, if an apple is more sustainable than a tomato.” Consistent, science-based information on products would “help consumers make more informed choices and incentivise producers to measure and communicate their environmental impact better,” WWF Italy spokesperson Leonardo Daziani told us. However, harmonising food labelling is not easy: countries (or even companies) prefer different methodologies, and labels should generally reflect each country's culture and language. The whole process can be costly, especially for small producers. Some countries try to sort it out themselves. Since 2021, France is piloting a governmental program to display products' environmental cost. But as long as different evaluation criteria coexist and certified…