Jamie Oliver defends supermarkets over food labelling 'disgrace'

Jamie Oliver has defended the super-markets but admits that food labelling is a disgrace. The Naked Chef was giving evidence to MPs on health inequalities.

During the course of his appearance before the House of Commons Health Select Committee, Oliver told Dr Howard Stoate MP, the chair of the All-Party Group on Men's Health, that he although he was no expert on packaging, he blamed the EU not the supermarkets.

'I think labelling in Great Britain is a disgrace. Categorically. We are run by the EU on labelling. For instance, you can have a product that says on the front of the pack "Sourced from the UK", and then on the back, in the tiniest font, "Made in Denmark".

We have just done a programme on British pork. It is an industry that is falling apart, but what is lovely is that the British public do want to buy British but they are failing to be able to be helped to support these British farmers - do you know what I mean? I think labelling is an absolute disgrace.'

Oliver said he thought the supermarkets had cleaned up their act. 'I think there is a fair amount of change going on at the moment. All supermarkets are doing a clean-up. I think more so at the moment.

He said you could 'cap salt, sugar and fat.' but he was worried that capping would 'kibosh' some 'great products' like Marmite which is high in salt.

He also agreed that he did not know what some supermarket labels such as 'this contains 13% GDA saturated fat' meant. Nor, incidently, did Howard Stoate and he's a GP.

• Full transcript of Jamie's exchange with Howard Stoate on the MHF's main site.