Ice Cream (Hansard, 28 July 1977)

§ Mr. Strang

For many years our consumers have had available to them two main types of ice cream and so have been able to choose which one they want to buy, depending on their personal preference and the price. The basic ingredients of both these ice creams have, by law, to be milk solids, fat and sugars. But our compositional and labelling laws also require that where an ice-cream is described as "dairy ice cream" all the fat must be milk fat. A product the fat content of which is not all milk fat must not be described as "dairy ice cream", but it may be described as "ice cream" if the words "contains non-milk fat" appear on the label in immediate462W proximity to that description. Manufacturers are free to choose which edible oils or fats they use in such a product. However, the Ice-Cream Federation has told us that, to its knowledge, no pig fat or soya bean oil and very little marine oil is used in the production of ice-cream in the United Kingdom.

We opposed the Commission's original proposals, the effect of which would have been to prevent the sale of the products containing non-milk fat under the description "ice cream", because we consider the interests of consumers are best served by preserving their freedom to choose between the products to which they have become accustomed under their traditional description of "ice cream". Throughout the discussions we have said that, while we could not agree to measures which would reduce consumer choice, raise prices or ban the use of the traditional description "ice cream", we were quite willing to consider whether our existing labelling requirements should be amended so as better to inform consumers of the types of ice cream they were buying. This will continue to be our policy.