Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80
- 99)
WEDNESDAY 21 FEBRUARY 2007
MR DAVID STATHAM AND MRS SARAH APPLEBY
Q80 Baroness Jones of Whitchurch:
We were talking a little earlier about GIs and you say in your
evidence that you think they can represent an asset in the overall
food and drink market place. I wondered if you could tell us a
little more about that. Just now you were talking about the problems
of GIs, but in your evidence you are saying you think they could
be an asset. Just give me a sense of the strengths and weaknesses
of GIs.
Mrs Appleby: Certainly when consumers are selecting
wine they are often attracted to a well known brand or a grape
variety, perhaps one they have bought before, and many EU wines
provide consistent quality and quite clear labels. But we have
to remember that supermarkets account for 73% of wine sales in
the UK and that is an astonishing amount. When people go into
a supermarket what is it that they are buying? People often pick
up on a particular picture of a label and so consumers can actually
identify consistent products, a consistent label, and if it is
on the supermarket shelves it is much easier for them to buy.
So there are increasingly consumers who do get confused by some
of the Geographical Indications but also they may be looking for
particular varieties. I think Côte du Rhône may be
something that they become familiar with and they know it is a
good quality wine, but then we have traders who are perhaps pushing
some of the boundaries. We had a label turn up, "Goats do
Roam," which is a novel approach, but obviously trying to
cash in on the Côte du Rhône name.
Q81 Chairman:
It is actually a very good wine!
Mrs Appleby: That is an example. A Côte
du Rhône could be a red, a rosé or a white, but it
is very interesting to see the way that other people take that
as an asset and exploit it for a marketing advantage.
Q82 Baroness Jones of Whitchurch:
You said earlier that you could give us some more advice about
how we could simplify the labelling. Do you see that you could
give us some more advice on how we could simplify that GI system
as part of the labelling. Do you have any thoughts on how you
could make it more democratic?
Mrs Appleby: It is very interesting to try and
think through a system which a consumer would be able to clearly
understand, and comparing it to other general labelling requirements
there are particular things that a consumer would look for—the
name of the country where it has been produced, perhaps the type
of grape that has been used in the production, the alcohol content.
You could have a standard list of four or five issues which should
be on any label and that may not be the case for some of these
GI wines. There is an assumption that someone who is an expert
on the issues would automatically know what the label meant.
Q83 Viscount Brookeborough:
Is there an issue or a problem with re-labelling, for instance
own labels, whether it is a supermarket or any other? You mentioned
counterfeiting—and the counterfeiting problem is much greater
than most people might think, in particular with vodka and so
on, and (we have had a big problem in Northern Ireland with it).
But counterfeiting is done in a very serious manner. How happy
are you that it does not take place in wine?
Mrs Appleby: Certainly, starting with the labelling,
that is something which on imports we would be looking at the
label, and if it fails to comply we may ask the importer to actively
re-label a product and so re-labelling works to our advantage.
Q84 Viscount Brookeborough:
What about if people want to re-label?
Mrs Appleby: There may be situations where people
buy up a cheap table wine and change the label to market it as
perhaps a higher value product, and this is where we would work
very closely with our Trading Standards colleagues and Environmental
Health Officers working in local authorities, and it is working
and sharing intelligence about those sorts of incidents when they
receive complaints about wine from consumers, and we actually
follow it up and we can find out where and how it is happening.
Q85 Viscount Brookeborough:
Is there any evidence of actual counterfeiting?
Mrs Appleby: There is some work that we are
trying to do at the moment in terms of sampling and surveillance,
to look at the authenticity of wine, to try and find out the country
of origin and make sure that the labelling is giving the correct
information.
Q86 Baroness Jones of Whitchurch:
How would you know? It is not like you can do a scientific test
as with the alcohol level. If something was a table wine that
had a slightly different label that said it was one level up from
that, how would you know that was the case?
Mrs Appleby: The first stage would be maybe
working on consumer complaints, and we have experts around who
can taste the difference between certain flavours and certain
types of wines from different regions, and that level of expertise
may come in and we may be aware of it. But there is work increasingly
being done on analytical methods to be able to identify the type
of grapes used and the geographical area in which they are grown.
It is very clever work that is being increasingly used.
Mr Statham: In addition, each of the GIs will
have a very clear profile so that it can be analysed to prove
whether it is exactly as it says it should be, and if it is not
then clearly that is where the fraud would be detected. So there
are records of the many thousand GIs that Sarah was telling you
of so, that we can use those reference samples, as it were, to
be able to compare it with those that may be fraudulently produced.
Q87 Baroness Jones of Whitchurch:
Can we broaden the discussion out a little because again you say
in your evidence that the EU rules are complex both for traders
and enforcers and in many ways that prevents consumers from making
an informed choice? I know we have started that discussion but
can you give us any other illustrations of where you think that
the EU rules are too complex at the moment?
Mrs Appleby: We recognise that for a lot of
consumers the label is very, very important to them and very often
it is the only way they have of identifying the wine, and they
may be confused by unfamiliar terms. We have already talked about
table wines and quality wines, and perhaps the average consumer
would not know the difference; maybe they recognise that there
is a price difference but they may not understand what that means.
Member States can restrict the optional information on the labels
which consumers find helpful. As I think David has already mentioned,
on French Appellation Controllée wines they are not allowed
to put the vine variety and that is something that may help people
identify exactly which wine they are buying. That compares with
some of the New World wines, which are specifically labelled with
the grape variety, the geographic origin. Some countries permit
the generic designations but others do not. As I have said, we
have this thing with traders always pushing the boundaries of
how much they can get away with in terms of the labelling.
Q88 Baroness Jones of Whitchurch:
In your written evidence you said that the EU wine making practices
should reflect more closely those of the OIV. Are there lessons
that we should learn from the OIV? And what did you mean exactly
by that?
Mrs Appleby: The International Organisation
of the Vine and Wine, the OIV, is an inter-government organisation
and they aim to promote and develop the wine trade and to improve
standardised scientific wine analysis and research. So they look
at different wine making practices and different analytical methods
and they make resolutions and these can be adopted by the EC,
although there may be some delay in that. So the OIV does actually
provide an opportunity for Members to discuss the concerns of
producers and consumers, worries from Enforcement Officers, for
example, and how we carry out standardisation activities, but
also attempts to harmonise existing practices and standards, potentially
preparing new standards and conditions for producing and marketing
wines. They can obviously look at some of the interests of consumers
as well.
Q89 Baroness Jones of Whitchurch:
But do they do that? Are they out there at the moment trying desperately
to standardise something that the EU is resisting? Is that what
is happening?
Mrs Appleby: The idea is that under the current
wine regime the Community do limit the range of wine making methods,
for example, that we can use, whereas the OIV are looking at all
the different types of wine making practices, new methods, new
technology, what can be produced and how it can be produced. But
the EU is outside that process, almost being perhaps a little
protectionist about some of the methods and things that they use.
Maybe we should be out there looking at it in the same way and
contributing to the debate.
Q90 Lord Palmer:
You mentioned earlier that 73% of wine in this country is sold
through the supermarkets. Do you happen to know, or would you
be able to discover, what percentage of that is actually bottled
in the UK?
Mrs Appleby: I do not have the figures with
me but we may be able to provide them.
Q91 Lord Palmer:
Would you hazard a guess—about a third is bottled in the
UK?
Mrs Appleby: Probably far less than that.
Mr Statham: Far less than that, yes. One of
the things we do find is that a great deal of the UK market tends
to be not through supermarkets and tends to be either directly
purchased from the vineyard or from local stores at a more craft
level. The supermarkets tend to be looking far more for the bigger
ranges, so there is quite a small amount of UK production that
would actually go through the supermarkets.
Q92 Lord Palmer:
In the old days certainly, Berry Brothers, I know, used to import
their own chateaux wine and then bottle it in London. They did
this most particularly with the chateaux bearing my name, to which,
sadly, I have no relation. You refer in your written evidence
to the current review by the European Commission for food labelling
generally and you suggest that "the review of the EU wine
sector may provide an opportunity to streamline the wine regulations
and ensure that they facilitate consumer choice and are consistent
with the approach proposed to be taken on food labelling generally."
Can you expand a little on this and put us more in the picture?
Mrs Appleby: Obviously we have already talked
quite a bit about food labelling, but I will add a little if I
may? There are all sorts of different rules, as I previously indicated,
according to the different categories of wine—still wine,
sparkling wine, table wine, GI quality wine, all the things we
have been talking about. What the Food Standards Agency would
like to see is that we should have wine labelling which is far
more in line with the rest of the food sector, is simple for consumers
and also for the industry and for enforcers, and regulations are
harmonised, proportionate and very much risk—based. As we
have mentioned, the EU is reviewing its labelling of food, and
again they are going to be reviewed along similar lines: there
will be new requirements for certain mandatory things and there
are other things that will be optional on labels. If wine, for
example, was treated like any other food we could,—and perhaps
should—have a requirement for ingredient listing so that
consumers could see what was in the wine that they were buying,
and that may also tie in with nutritional labelling for wine because
obviously we are all very conscious these days of the need to
be careful what we are eating and drinking, and it would perhaps
be appropriate that, when we had our glass of wine, we knew what
the traffic light colours were on it. So things of that sort would
be extremely helpful to consumers and would help us to have a
common regime. It does seem a little strange that we have a situation
where, for example, we have to list ingredients for soft drinks
but not for wine. I guess it is perhaps assumed that we all know
what is in our wine.
Q93 Lord Palmer:
I think some of us would be amazed what is in it!
Mr Statham: I think we would be, absolutely.
Q94 Lord Palmer:
In Paragraph 29 of your evidence you drew attention to the two
groups of non-EU wine exporters to the UK—the established
ones who are familiar with the EU wine sector rules and the newer
ones, some of whom are not—and whose imports you may have
to reject. Presumably this is an issue in other EU Member countries
as well? Can you give us some idea of the scale of the problem.
Do you have to reject large quantities of non-EU wine imports?
And how does this tie in with the WTO agreements?
Mrs Appleby: We do have some well—established
non-EU countries who have excellent systems in place to ensure
and control the vineyards, the wine production and labelling,
and so when it does enter the EU it fully complies. But we are
aware that there are other non-EU countries that do not have such
well-established controls. As I have already mentioned, we have
had 165 temporary movement control notices issued by our wine
standards inspectors and these related to wines mainly from non-EU
countries, and that included the USA and South Africa. The most
frequent offences relate to alcohol levels being above the permitted
maximum, lack of importer details or problems with the certification
that accompanies the wine. In most instances the wine has been
released following corrective action but we are aware of re-exports.
So the wine standards inspectors apply the regulation and third
countries must comply with those EU labelling rules. We do have
some bilateral agreements with some non-EU countries where we
are certain that the controls are very similar. The Agency is
currently undertaking sampling and surveillance work and looking
at certain of these new entrant countries—Moldavia, Georgia,
Lebanon. We have some people obviously with some very good quality
wines, but we are looking to see what kind of standards they maintain
and to ensure that they do comply with the EU rules. We are looking
at things like authenticity. I understand that there is more Pinot
Grigio wine circulating than there could be vines on which to
grow it, but that is the sort of thing we are trying to find out
more to look and see exactly where the problem is and whether
it is fraudulent use of labelling, and exactly where the problem
might come.
Q95 Lord Palmer:
In the papers today it said that wine sales in the UK were flat.
Do you have a view or do you know why non-EU wine imports have
been so much more successful in knocking particularly the French
and other European wine producers in the sale of wine in this
country?
Mrs Appleby: I think it is very interesting
because historically Member States may have been simply wanting
to produce wine for their home markets. Maybe they had not intended
to produce wine for exports or maybe they export the wine that
they do not want, and that is quite an interesting concept. We
know clearly that the New World countries have exploited every
opportunity—they have had financial backing and sustained
advertising campaigns—and perhaps they have made considerable
efforts to ensure a consistent product, and maybe with stable
levels of sunshine and rainfall, it is easier for them to do that
kind of thing and perhaps produce it at a price which consumers
enjoy. We mentioned earlier about various wine scandals that occurred
in the 1980s and that potentially perhaps led to a falling off
in confidence for EU consumers. We had the problem of adulteration
with diethylene glycol in Austria in the 1980s, and that created
a problem. We have had problems again with wood alcohol being
added to wine. I think something like 37 companies have been involved
with this adulteration of wine, and that has obviously been dealt
with. We have had TV chefs and wine experts coming on to educate
the public about wine tasting, what to expect, what to look for.
With increasing travel people are very interested in trying new
wines and, if they are very easily available in supermarkets,
there is every opportunity to try different sorts of wines.
Lord Palmer: Thank you very much indeed.
Q96 Chairman:
There is growing concern or at least publicity given to the fact
that food miles are beginning to affect climate change and so
on. Do you think this is getting through to the wine industry
at all, because whilst New World wines, as we often call them,
are increasing in this country as far as the consumer is concerned,
do you think it will affect in the long-term the import of wines
from long distances?
Mrs Appleby: I think consumers are certainly
starting to become much more aware and I think our own UK vineyards
are seeing increased planting, and so UK production, although
very small, is actually increasing and, maybe with some good positive
marketing, they may be able to increase their sales and potentially
increase the awareness of the consumer to perhaps try more local
wines or be more adventurous with EU wines.
Q97 Chairman:
Then they are limited on a quota, the amount that can be produced?
Mrs Appleby: Yes, and that is potentially where
the changes in the wine regime may have an advantage for the UK
market.
Q98 Viscount Brookeborough:
You have mentioned the maximum alcohol content permitted, when
exceeded, as being one of the things in which you are very interested.
How often is what is indicated on the label exceeded, because
that may not be the maximum permitted—it could be 11 or
11.5%. How often is that?
Mrs Appleby: I do not have any data on that
with me.
Q99 Lord Palmer:
A very na-£ve question, following on from our Chairman's
question about air miles. How does most of the wine, for example
from New Zealand, arrive in the European Union? By boat, by air?
Mr Statham: It will be by ship; very little
is air-freighted in. Unlike the salads and things we fly in from
Kenya, it is not quite as sensitive in terms of time in relation
to wine. So, yes, it virtually all comes in by ship.
Chairman: It is a strange world, this.
I tried to buy some wine in New Zealand a couple of years ago
and I found that I could buy it cheaper in this country than I
could buy it there. This is an odd market for me, but there we
are. Lord Moynihan wants to know how to make wine!
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