Iberian ham, an integral a part of Spain’s cultural heritage, can be a significant trade bringing collectively pork producers, restaurateurs, ham makers and artisans such because the “cortadores” who’re expert in finely slicing the luxurious hams. The historic sector, nevertheless, is in disaster after the pandemic imposed sweeping closures on Spain’s hospitality sector. With eating places closed and occasions cancelled, the principal customers of Spain’s famed ‘pata negra’ ham are now not in a position to pay the identical worth as earlier than, if they’re even shopping for in any respect. Producers of the normal ham are having to slash costs, with the going-rate for the cured legs dropping 20-25% in lower than a 12 months. To make issues worse, this isn’t the one problem dealing with these producers: Spain is contemplating implementing a problematic dietary labelling system which discriminates towards this conventional meat, writes Colin Stevens.
Exports underneath menace
Whereas bars and eating places are reopening in quite a few Spanish areas, elevating hopes that the pandemic-induced droop in demand for Iberian ham could also be on its final legs, the jamón trade is dealing with a extra lasting problem if Spain introduces the controversial French front-of-pack (FOP) dietary labelling system, Nutri-score. A coalition of seven European member states, together with Spain, are backing the implementation of Nutri-score regardless of agnosticism from the European Fee, which declined to advocate a particular FOP labelling system, and strict opposition from producers of conventional merchandise like Iberian ham.
Certainly, fears abound within the trade that Iberian ham’s status and gross sales might take a success if the labelling scheme is launched. Nutri-score makes use of a inflexible algorithm which calculates a meals’s “healthiness” based mostly on a hard and fast 100g or 100 mL portion measurement, whatever the meals concerned—a system which a lot of Nutri-score’s critics, from scientists to client teams, have decided to be vastly oversimplified and probably deceptive. This reliance on an arbitrary serving measurement might have devastating results on conventional merchandise like Iberian ham—certainly, Spain’s premium pork merchandise would obtain “poor marks” since Nutri-score doesn’t account for the truth that they’re often consumed in skinny slices as a part of a balanced meal.
This mislabelling might have very actual penalties. One trade skilled predicted that slapping a unfavorable Nutri-score on Iberian ham might trigger exports to fall by 50%, a blow which might throw a spanner into each the ham trade’s efforts to recuperate from the Covid downturn and a €6 million European Union-backed marketing campaign to consolidate the presence of Iberian ham in strategic markets corresponding to France, Germany and the UK.
Well being advantages missed
Spain’s pig farmers and ham makers aren’t solely involved with the potential monetary repercussions of implementing a system which supplies their merchandise a poor rating. The sector can be aggrieved as a result of Nutri-score’s limitations obscure the confirmed well being advantages of the normal meat. As a spokesman for the Inter-professional Iberian Pig Affiliation highlighted: “The system simply doesn’t supply a correct analysis of the qualities of one of many fundamental merchandise of the Mediterranean eating regimen, which is thought to be one of many healthiest diets on the planet.”
Certainly, Nutri-score’s punitive therapy of Iberian ham masks the truth that the meat is full of all the things from antioxidants, to excessive protein content material, and a plethora of nutritional vitamins corresponding to iron, phosphorus, potassium and zinc. In response to research carried out by the Ramón y Cajal Hospital and by Extremadura College, Iberian ham is even helpful for cardiovascular well being as a result of it comprises so-called ‘oleic’ or monounsaturated fatty acids, that are essential to reducing levels of cholesterol. Certainly, the European Coronary heart Community beneficial that the Nutri-score algorithm be revised by an impartial panel of scientific specialists to make sure that it really promotes cardiovascular well being.
A slippery slope
Sadly, Nutri-score’s simplistic scoring isn’t any means an issue distinctive to Iberian ham. The crux of the issue lies in the truth that the Nutri-score conflates all foodstuffs underneath one umbrella on its campaign towards excessive energy, sugar, fats and salt content material. The algorithm neither differentiates between wholesome fat and unhealthy fat, nor illustrates the content material of salubrious components that are basic to a balanced eating regimen—the truth is, the system is so skewed that whereas pata negra earns poor marks, eating regimen fizzy drinks obtain B grades. Whereas low-scoring processed meals can reformulate their merchandise to bump up their Nutri-score grades, the single-ingredient foodstuffs that make up the bedrock of the world-renowned Mediterranean eating regimen—European heritage merchandise like olive oil and cheese—haven’t any manner of reformulating their merchandise.
Nutri-score’s relegation of olive oil precipitated specific consternation, at a time when the Spanish olive oil sector is already underneath such financial strain that centuries-old olive bushes are being chopped up for firewood. In February, Consumption Minister Alberto Garzón admitted that Nutri-score didn’t adequately mirror olive oil’s well being advantages—“olive oil is sweet on your well being, and we can not have a label that claims it’s unhealthy”, he defined. Spanish officers’ settlement that olive oil wouldn’t bear the Nutri-score label unsurprisingly solely added gasoline to the flames. The Iberian pork and cheese commerce unions subsequently requested exclusion for his or her merchandise too, however had been dismissed by Madrid’s Ministry of Client Affairs.
Overwhelming opposition?
The labelling dispute has now unfold far past the agricultural sector and is threatening to turn into a full-blown political disaster in Spain. The Partido Well-liked and Vox parliamentary teams each not too long ago filed requests that the federal government cease the implementation of Nutri-score provided that the labelling scheme has come underneath fireplace from everybody from nutritionists to agricultural producers, and highlighted the truth that various labelling methods, corresponding to Italy’s Nutrinform Battery, may present at-a-glance dietary info with out penalising strategic sectors.
With the pandemic already inflicting extreme disruption to culturally and financially treasured industries corresponding to Iberian ham and olive oil, Spanish policymakers can not afford to implement a labelling system that hopelessly muddles customers’ understanding of what’s wholesome and what’s not, and requires a prolonged listing of exceptions to the rule. Moderately, the Spanish authorities ought to advocate a system that doesn’t negatively have an effect on these key sectors of their economic system, who have already got their backs towards the wall.