MEP's make sure crooked veg is still on the menu

Date published: 26 March 2010

Tameside MEPs have played a key role in ensuring that crooked carrots and curvy cucumbers can still be sold in shops.

They have voted down a bid by Spanish MEPs to restore old EU rules that restricted the sale of imperfect-looking fruit and vegetables.

The controversial proposal to reinstate the ‘community marketing rules’ gained the support of the European Parliament’s agriculture committee last month, but it was heavily defeated by a vote of all MEPs in Brussels on Thursday.

Tameside Liberal Democrat Chris Davies welcomed the rejection of a scheme which he said had in the past led to perfectly healthy fruit and veg being thrown away.

He said: “I want EU rules to ensure that food on sale is safe to eat, but shoppers can make up their own minds about whether to buy bendy bananas or crooked carrots.”

But the MEP admitted that supermarkets often responded to consumer demand by telling farmers only to supply them with good looking products.

Davies commented: “People say they want choice, but the majority of shoppers avoid buying fruit and veg that they think looks strange.”