Chocolate trouble: EU debates vegetable fat inclusion

February 24, 2000
Web posted at: 1:41 p.m. EST (1841 GMT)

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -- A resolution of the European Union's long-running chocolate dispute came a step closer on Wednesday when a key parliamentary panel backed a plan to allow the inclusion of vegetable fats in chocolate.

The majority approval by the assembly's Environment Committee is only a step towards a final deal. The issue still has to be voted through by the full European Parliament on March 15, which is by no means guaranteed.

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But the vote -- 40 in favour, nine against and four abstentions -- pleased British MEPs, who have campaigned to get British-made chocolate exports into EU countries such as Italy and Spain that have in the past barred them on the grounds they contain cocoa substitutes.

"It has taken 20 years to be able to buy a Cadbury's Flake as easily in Madrid or Munich as in Manchester," said Labour's Philip Whitehead. "Consumers will be able to buy the chocolate they want, where they want it.

The row over what chocolate can contain dates back to Britain's entry into the EU in the early 1970s and has pitted it, and six others which use vegetable fat against the "purists" led by Belgium and France, which only permit the use of cocoa butter in chocolate.

The dispute has also brought in poor cocoa-producing countries such as Ivory Coast, which say annual cocoa demand -- a key foreign currency earner -- could fall by up to 200,000 tonnes if all EU countries start using vegetable fats.

EU governments and the European Commission approved a provisional deal last October to allow chocolate to contain up to five percent non-cocoa vegetable fats.

The compromise allows the use of six specific tropical fats -- illipe, palm oil, sal, shea, kokum gurgi and mango kernel.

It also provides for a clearly legible statement telling the consumer of the inclusion of vegetable fats. The statement has to be separate from the ingredients' list but can be next to it.

Those opposing the EU governments' position have put forward amendments to the draft legislation, including a demand that the label be placed clearly on the front of any product.

This amendment was one of those voted down by the committee but if any of them are supported in the plenary vote, and plenaries have previously overturned committees in the chocolate row, the proposal must return to EU governments to be reworked.

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