Freshfel Europe launched its online Fresh Quality Guide at Fruit Logistica last week. The guide is a compendium of legislative requirements for marketing fresh produce on the European marketplace and provides a one-stop source of information for anyone trading or wishing to trade in fresh produce with the EU. "To date, there has been no single source of such EU requirements," said Tom Lyall of Freshfel who has been working on the project since its inception a year ago. "The fresh quality guide fills this void, with comprehensive summaries and original legal texts." It is likely to be extremely valuable to traders and producers in the 10 countries due to accede to the EU later this year.

The project has been run by Freshfel Europe in association with Fundación Angel Rey in Madrid, which was able to give a much valued commercial perspective. As a result the guide has been devised with fresh produce industry demands and expectations in mind to be a user-friendly source of legislative requirements ranging from product packaging to microbiological criteria of foodstuffs. These legal requirements cover all fresh fruit and vegetables. The guide also features marketing standards of over 70 individual products and all EU harmonised pesticide maximum residue levels. "This information will be updated to provide up to date information for today’s changing legislative environment," said Lyall. "To ensure users are aware of potential legislative changes, all European Commission proposals for legislation will be included."

The guide is available at www.freshquality.org and is in English. The possibility of translation into other languages is being considered.

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