So-called “dual-quality foods” have been on Central European governments’ radar for years, but Slovakia’s presidency of the Council of the European Union has raised their hopes that Bratislava will finally push to combat double standards by launching action toward tighter regulation at the European level. The Slovaks, vocally supported by the Czechs, want to rectify what they see as an unfair distortion of the single market.
Researchers have found packaged foods may look the same in Germany and the Czech Republic, but aren’t the same on the inside — the version in Prague is often of an inferior quality. The practice, advocates say, reflects a belief among suppliers that they can still palm off poorer quality goods to Central European consumers more than a quarter of a century after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The food industry says differences in some products’ ingredients are simply due to the peculiarities of national tastes across the EU. [...]
Current EU food legislation requires companies to fully label ingredients to inform consumers, but it doesn’t require that brand-name products are tied to specific recipes. Czech officials confirmed there was no way to address the differences in product of the same brand without drafting new parts of EU food law.
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