20 April, 2006
Double (Trading) Standards
Had a meeting with a very nice guy from Trading Standards yesterday. I wanted to go through exactly what laws I need to comply with to be able to make and sell my own products. I have to say that even though I expected it to be difficult, I wasn’t prepared for the amount of detail there is to think about! Hasn’t put me off though, I just see it as a process that includes some hurdles. Some of those hurdles will be small and some will be large so I just need to take each one as it comes up, should be a fun journey!
I had to smile when we got on to the subject of what I’m allowed to call my food products. Apparently if you’re making a claim about the healthy aspects of a product then it has to be provable or ‘common knowledge’. What about uncommon knowledge, where’s the allowance for things we haven’t found out about yet? And what about supermarkets that call their bacon ‘healthy eating’, is it common knowledge that bacon is healthy just because it’s got less rind? I’ve also seen chocolate eclairs marked in the same way…healthy eclairs!!! Could I bring out a product with that much refined sugar in it and call ‘healthy’ just because it’s got less fat than a ‘normal’ eclair?
It’s no wonder our supermarket shelves are dominated by big name companies’ products. The legislation that has to be worked through is enough to put anyone off that doesn’t have a team of lawyers working for them.
This is going to call for guerrilla warfare tactics :-)…exploit the things that you think put you at a disadvantage and turn them into your biggest advantage!
I’m off to assemble the troops…
Tallyho!
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