The British Egg Industry Council (BEIC) is calling for the mandatory introduction of labelling, detailing the production method and country of origin of egg products.

The BEIC has written to the European Commission asking for more stringent labelling regulation, in order to ensure consumers are able to make informed decisions about the food they purchase.

The call comes in advance of the submission of a report by the European Commission (EC) to the European Parliament, ahead of the new EC Food Information for Consumer rules, which come into force on 13 December 2014.

The report will cover mandatory indication of the country of origin for unprocessed foods, single ingredient products and ingredients that represent more than 50% of a food, according to the Commission.

Ian Jones, chairman, British Lion egg processors, said: “We hope the Commission will take the BEIC’s call for mandatory labelling seriously and, once it is in place, we would then like to extend this to products containing eggs.”

He said that since the horsemeat scandal last January, consumers have never been more interested in the provenance of the food they buy.

He continued: “We know consumers want to know whether the eggs in food products, such as quiche and egg sandwiches, are British and this will be the first stage to making this happen.”

Country of origin and production method labelling has already been introduced for shell eggs produced in the egg, “to great effect”, however the BEIC is keen to extend this to food containing egg products.