These Rules concern the labelling of non-prepacked food placed on the market in the Republic of Croatia.

Draft Rules amending the Rules on the provision of information on non-prepacked food to consumers

The draft Rules amend the Rules on the provision of information on non-prepacked food to consumers (Narodne Novine [NN; Official Gazette of the Republic of Croatia] No 144/14) (hereinafter: Rules currently in force) as described below.

With the aim of providing better information to consumers, a provision stipulating that information on non-prepacked food is to comply with the fair information practices laid down in Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No. 1169/2011, as well as the mandatory indication of the country or place of origin for meat falling within the Combined Nomenclature (‘CN’) codes listed in Annex XI to Regulation (EU) No. 1169/2011, as stipulated in Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No. 1337/2013 laying down rules for the application of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards the indication of the country of origin or place of provenance for fresh, chilled and frozen meat of swine, sheep, goats and poultry has been introduced into the Rules currently in force.

Furthermore, the provision stipulating the obligation of indicating the food business operator responsible for non-prepacked food on the sales premises, considering that the operator offers the food for sale to the final consumer, has been deleted.

In accordance with the Rules currently in force, information on substances and products that cause allergies or intolerances, as well as other information that is stipulated mandatory, is to be made available in writing, be easily visible, clearly legible and, where appropriate, indelible, emphasised on the sales premises, in close proximity to the food to which it relates or on the packaging, where the food is kept packaged on the sales premises.

The draft Rules amending the Rules currently in force provide that information on the name of the food, substances and products that cause allergies and intolerances, as well as the ‘use by’ date, are to be made available to the consumer at the moment of delivery, not only on the sales premises. This provision refers to the food packaged on the sales premises at the consumer’s request and to pre-packed food for direct sales. The phrase ‘where appropriate’, which is included in the provision, allows for a certain degree of flexibility in terms of implementation of the provision in the sense that it is not applied in certain cases where objective and technical possibilities do not allow for its application or in cases when it is not possible to print scales labels, such as during street sales, on green markets, retail outlets with technical restrictions of the scales, etc.

The Rules shall enter into force immediately, except for the mandatory indication of the country of origin or place of provenance for fresh, chilled and frozen meat of swine, sheep, goats and poultry, for which the transitional period until 1 January 2021 has been provided; this is the deadline by which food business operators must comply with the provision.