New regulations for labelling milk substitute products in Georgia

Strict rules are being introduced in Georgia meaning local producers can no longer label their dairy products with misleading claims such as "with fats similar to cottage cheese” or "with fats similar to sour cream” and so on.

The regulation will come into force from August 1, the Georgian National Food Agency said.

Last summer Georgia announced it was cracking down on misleading labelling of dairy products.

From August 2015 the National Food Agency imposed a new norm where dairy products were clearly labelled if they were made from animal by-products.

Specifically, food labels on products such as milk, sour cream, yogurt, cottage cheese, butter and other must be clearly labelled if any extra additives were added.

If vegetable fats were added to dairy products, producers were obliged to label the products accordingly, such as "with fats similar to cottage cheese” or "with fats similar to sour cream” and so on.

Meanwhile producers were only allowed to use this type of labelling for a year. From August 2016 producers will be banned from mentioning "milk” or "sour cream” on their products if it contained anything else other than dairy products.

The Georgian National Food Agency said the changes aimed to strengthen food safety and provide the population with more information about what they are eating.

Previously labeling rules were not regulated in Georgia, which meant that dairy food and products with vegetable fats were labelled similarly.