Action taken against potato cheats, following an FSA survey that found significant mislabelling of potatoes, has had a welcome effect in forcing errant suppliers to clean up their act.

The agency first tackled the issue of mislabelling earlier this year with a survey of potato samples in February and April in 30 regional locations in England, Wales and Scotland.

This first survey found that 33 per cent of potatoes were labelled incorrectly, including 17 per cent that were not the variety they were claimed to be. In some cases this led to consumers paying higher prices for premium products when actually they were being given cheaper varieties.

In the light of the FSA findings, local authority enforcement staff followed up cases where labelling information was lacking or inaccurate and reminded retailers of their responsibility to ensure they receive the correct information from their suppliers to allow them to label their products for sale correctly.

The latest FSA survey, of potatoes collected in June 2003, found that the situation has improved and that only 11 per cent of samples were labelled as the wrong variety (17 per cent in the earlier survey). Another 11per cent were not labelled with sufficient information (16 per cent in the earlier survey).

The agency and enforcement authorities will keep the situation under review, the FSA said in a statement.

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