New proposals to regulate food labels in the EU will go before the European Parliament on Tuesday.

Country-of-origin labelling may become mandatory for meat, poultry, fish, dairy produce, fruit and vegetables.

Meat labels would also state exactly where the animal was reared.

But there are fears that an EU-wide “traffic light” coding system could stigmatise some foods. Cheese, for example, could be red for fat but green for calcium and protein.