Jun 30, 2009, 16:35 GMT
Brussels - Cucumbers shaped like boomerangs are set to land back on the shelves of European Union shops on Wednesday, after the EU's executive bowed to criticism and repealed laws setting minimum standards for the way fruit and vegetables should look.
'July 1 marks the return to our shelves of the curved cucumber and the knobbly carrot ... We don't need to regulate this sort of thing: it is far better to leave it to market operators,' EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said.
Under the EU's current 20-year-old rules, fruit and vegetables sold in Europe are divided into classes depending on their quality and appearance. The criteria include, for example, the degree of curvature of cucumbers and the smoothness of carrots.
The idea behind the legislation was to make it easier for EU consumers in different countries to compare products.
But the legislation was widely ridiculed, being described by critics as an example of EU standardization run wild.
In 2007, the EU's executive, the European Commission, therefore pledged to strike out some of its standards in a bid to cut red tape, improve customer choice and stop farmers having to throw away good but unsightly food. The agreement comes into force on Wednesday.
Twenty-six types of produce, from apricots to water melons, are to be freed entirely from most appearance-related criteria.
Ten more, which account for 75 per cent of the value of the EU's fruit-and-vegetables trade, will still have to pass some visual tests. However, member states will have the choice of allowing retailers to sell sub-standard products under a special label.
The 10 special categories are apples, citrus fruits, kiwi fruit, lettuces, peaches and nectarines, pears, strawberries, sweet peppers, grapes and tomatoes.
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