The British Retail Consortium has criticised two European proposals dealing with yoghurt and said the proposals have the potential to impose significant new costs on the UK dairy industry.

The first proposal would ban the use of the English prefix ‘bio’ on the vast majority of yoghurts produced in Britain, because the word ‘bio’ means organic in many other European countries. The ban would see packaging having to be redesigned and yoghurts made with bifidus cultures relabelled.

“The second proposal ignores UK manufacturing practices for yoghurt and would see the yoghurts British consumers are used to having to be relabelled as ‘Mild alternate culture heat-treated fermented milk’,” said the BRC.