Abstract

The aim of this work was presentation of labelling and tagging rules for food products. The obligatory and voluntary rules of food labelling presented in the paper signify the hitherto legal status of this area, as well as demonstrate the direction of changes aimed at the unification of the labelling system in the European Union and also at the prevention of misleading the consumer by improper tagging of food products.

The changes in the food labelling system have been caused by the introduction of new regulations intended to protect the consumer’s interests against unfair market practice. A particular attention was paid in this work to nutritional and health information, as well as labelling of the nutritional value.

Introduction by the EU Council and the European Parliament of a new legal directive in the form of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2011 on the provision of food information to consumers imposes on the producers the responsibility to label products according to strictly defined rules.