EU over-regulation #94

The pasta factory in Gödersdorf is, for an industrial building, quite pretty. Imagine a small Victorian brewery or mill, a range of buildings around a yard, and flowing obliquely through it a crystal-clear bach rippling over its bed of smooth washed stone. People come here from wide around for partly the discount pasta shop but mostly the café – fresh cooked pasta in a range of sauces, and pots of the local lager. The family firm competes quite well against the big industrial pasta factories to the south, and brands are widely stocked in supermarkets in the region.

Finkensteiner have made a unique selling point in their egg content – “Four eggs to every kilo!” is the proud boast. But now they have fallen foul of EU labelling regulations, and face huge costs in re-printing and re-labelling all the packaging to be in exact accordance with EU labelling regulations.

An official complaint was made to the Justice department, and they have been convicted and fined for breaches including

• Stating the number of eggs per kilo rather than a percentage figure – and only a percent figure
• Using an hourglass to indicate cooking time rather than written boiling instructions
• The storage and use-by instructions are too widely separated on the packets

Ten tonnes of pasta in the warehouse must also now be re-packaged.

Honestly, I can’t even begin to condemn the utter stupidity of EU over-regulation.