I want the right to do my own research.
I want to know where it came from & what’s in it.

What I can’t know about, I won’t use.

Thank you Sue (& helpers) for all your hard work.
Good Luck

After reading all the above posts carefully, I have not been persuaded by any of the arguments put forward, that such labeling is a bad idea.

I am very sympathetic to the idea that it does not go half far enough. Each package of food, whatever it is, should say clearly where if originated from in my opinion, and I can see no logical reason why this is a bad idea.

Safety checks on all food wherever it comes from must be a good idea, along with suitable penalties for infringement. Where is the problem. Don’t we all want to be assured that food we purchase from ANYONE else has a good chance of being safe to eat.

Putting up objections that it is’ too costly’, or would ‘discriminate against a trading partner’, are plain silly. Why should they not be proud to announce to all that the product was made, grown, processed, etc in …….land. As far as having voluntary origin labeling, what about those who chose not to label for whatever reason, you would end up with a flawed system that would not be trusted by the consumer.

If for example, all children’s toys were unlabeled ( country of origin), and there was an outbreak of arsenic poisoning of children traced back to say paint on toys. Would there not be an immediate call for labeling. It’s an issue of traceability, in the case of a problem. To me it’s the issue of, if there is a problem with a product, there should be obvious accountability, traceable back from the consumer to the producer.

Surely food is the most important consumer product and all consumers have a right to the maximum possible information.

That is so ancient. Now, it’s either Halal or it isn’t

As for random inspections, why would that necessarily cost the tax payer? The importer might have to certify something is healthy and pay for an import license that covers the costs of random inspections. Produce failing health checks would be turned back and the license revoked and a new license purchased. That would at least improve safety of high risk items like chicken.

Much easier. Unless we somehow employ enough trusted and accountable inspectors to check all food sourced from China and have them report their findings and what they consider may or may not be harmful. We could do that, but it would cost the taxpyer heaps.

Alternatively we can have a label that says, in effect “this food was produced withinn the jurisdiction of a certain government and you can decide if you trust that jurisdiction to produce this particular product safely”. Comparing this to labelling products with the religion of the producer is silly. The world is divided up into jurisdictions based on nation-states, not on religions.

it is also unrealistic to say we can excersize choice by simply avoiding any products which don’t have the labelling. country of origin labelling is not prevalent enough to give that much choice.

you cannot just have a little bit of democracy or just the bits you like, you either respect the will of the people or you do not.

just out of curiosity which is it in your case?