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Iberian ham, an integral part of Spain’s cultural heritage, is also a vital industry bringing together pork producers, restaurateurs, ham makers and artisans such as the “cortadores” who are skilled in finely slicing the luxurious hams. The historic sector, however, is in crisis after the pandemic imposed sweeping closures on Spain’s hospitality sector. With restaurants closed and events cancelled, the principal consumers of Spain’s famed ‘pata negra’ ham are no longer able to pay the same price as before, if they are even buying at all. Producers of the traditional ham are having to slash prices, with the going-rate for the cured legs dropping 20-25% in less than a year. To make matters worse, this isn’t the only challenge facing these producers: Spain is considering implementing a problematic nutritional labelling system which discriminates against this traditional meat, writes Colin Stevens.
Exports under threat
While bars and restaurants are reopening in a number of Spanish regions, raising hopes that the pandemic-induced slump in demand for Iberian ham may be on its last legs, the jamón industry is facing a more lasting challenge if Spain introduces the controversial French front-of-pack (FOP) nutritional labelling system, Nutri-score. A coalition of seven European member states, including Spain, are backing the implementation of Nutri-score despite agnosticism from the European Commission, which declined to recommend a specific FOP labelling system, and strict opposition from producers of traditional products like Iberian ham.
Indeed, fears abound in the industry that Iberian ham’s reputation and sales could take a hit if the labelling scheme is introduced. Nutri-score uses a rigid algorithm which calculates a food’s “healthiness” based on a fixed 100g or 100 mL portion size, regardless of the food involved—a system which many of Nutri-score’s critics, from scientists to consumer groups, have determined to be vastly oversimplified and potentially misleading. This reliance on an arbitrary serving size could have devastating effects on traditional products like Iberian ham—indeed, Spain’s premium pork products would receive “poor marks” since Nutri-score does not account for the fact that they are usually consumed in thin slices as part of a balanced meal.
This mislabelling could have very real consequences. One industry expert predicted that slapping a negative Nutri-score on Iberian ham could cause exports to fall by 50%, a blow which would throw a spanner into both the ham industry’s efforts to recover from the Covid downturn and a €6 million European Union-backed campaign to consolidate the presence of Iberian ham in strategic markets such as France, Germany and the UK.
Health benefits overlooked
Spain’s pig farmers and ham makers aren’t only concerned with the potential financial repercussions of implementing a system which gives their products a poor score. The sector is also aggrieved because Nutri-score’s limitations obscure the proven health benefits of the traditional meat. As a spokesman for the Inter-professional Iberian Pig Association highlighted: “The system just doesn’t offer a proper evaluation of the qualities of one of the basic products of the Mediterranean diet, which is regarded as one of the healthiest diets in the world.”
Indeed, Nutri-score’s punitive treatment of Iberian ham masks the fact that the meat is packed with everything from antioxidants, to high protein content, and a plethora of vitamins such as iron, phosphorus, potassium and zinc. According to studies carried out by the Ramón y Cajal Hospital and by Extremadura University, Iberian ham is even beneficial for cardiovascular health because it contains so-called ‘oleic’ or monounsaturated fatty acids, which are crucial to lowering cholesterol levels. Indeed, the European Heart Network recommended that the Nutri-score algorithm be revised by an independent panel of scientific experts to ensure that it actually promotes cardiovascular health.
A slippery slope
Unfortunately, Nutri-score’s simplistic scoring is no means a problem unique to Iberian ham. The crux of the problem lies in the fact that the Nutri-score conflates all foodstuffs under one umbrella on its crusade against high calories, sugar, fat and salt content. The algorithm neither differentiates between healthy fats and unhealthy fats, nor illustrates the content of salubrious elements which are fundamental to a balanced diet—in fact, the system is so skewed that while pata negra earns poor marks, diet fizzy drinks receive B grades. While low-scoring processed foods can reformulate their products to bump up their Nutri-score grades, the single-ingredient foodstuffs that make up the bedrock of the world-renowned Mediterranean diet—European heritage products like olive oil and cheese—have no way of reformulating their products.
Nutri-score’s relegation of olive oil caused particular consternation, at a time when the Spanish olive oil sector is already under such economic pressure that centuries-old olive trees are being chopped up for firewood. In February, Consumption Minister Alberto Garzón admitted that Nutri-score did not adequately reflect olive oil’s health benefits—“olive oil is good for your health, and we cannot have a label that says it’s bad”, he explained. Spanish officials’ agreement that olive oil would not bear the Nutri-score label unsurprisingly only added fuel to the flames. The Iberian pork and cheese trade unions subsequently requested exclusion for their products too, but were dismissed by Madrid’s Ministry of Consumer Affairs.
Overwhelming opposition?
The labelling dispute has now spread far beyond the agricultural sector and is threatening to become a full-blown political crisis in Spain. The Partido Popular and Vox parliamentary groups both recently filed requests that the government stop the implementation of Nutri-score given that the labelling scheme has come under fire from everyone from nutritionists to agricultural producers, and highlighted the fact that alternative labelling systems, such as Italy’s Nutrinform Battery, might provide at-a-glance nutritional information without penalising strategic sectors.
With the pandemic already causing severe disruption to culturally and financially precious industries such as Iberian ham and olive oil, Spanish policymakers cannot afford to implement a labelling system that hopelessly muddles consumers’ understanding of what’s healthy and what’s not, and requires a lengthy list of exceptions to the rule. Rather, the Spanish government should advocate a system that doesn’t negatively affect these key sectors of their economy, who already have their backs against the wall.
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