Assessing alleged differences in the quality of household and personal care products sold in the Single Market – Results of an EU wide comparison
The Joint Research Centre (JRC) collaborated with EU Member States’ competent authorities to investigate the extent of compositional differentiation of seemingly identical household and personal care products sold in the Single Market. Front-of-pack images and ingredient data of 58 branded household and 79 personal care products were collected from 20 EU Member States following a harmonised methodology. The products were grouped into classes with ‘identical’ or ‘different’ ingredients and ‘identical’, ‘similar’ or ‘different’ front-of-pack appearances. The results indicated that 8 % of products had an identical front-of-pack but differed in declared ingredients, while 25 % of products with differences in the listed ingredients showed also certain variations in their front-of-pack appearance. No clear trend of product differentiation was observed across geographical regions of participating Member States. It is important to note that the survey results do not reflect the situation for the entire range of products offered in the Single Market, and the compositional differences found in the survey do not necessarily constitute a difference in product quality. The report also concludes that it is possible for Member States, industry representatives and NGOs to monitor composition differences across the Single Market by using ICT solutions.
ULBERTH Franz;
2023-07-24
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC134346
978-92-68-05361-4 (online),
1831-9424 (online),
EUR 31583 EN,
OP KJ-NA-31-583-EN-N (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC134346,
10.2760/401439 (online),
Additional supporting files
| File name | Description | File type | |
|---|
