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Get your free copy18 November 2013, 10:47 AM
- The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) have set new regulations allowing jam to be made with 50 per cent sugar, 10 per cent less than the current ruling
The new regulations have been set in order to support the exportation of British-produced jam overseas. The change currently only effects producers in England, but those in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are expected to follow.
The decision has received criticism from Liberal Democrat Tessa Munt MP, who claimed that the new regulations would mean that the traditional, gel-like nature of jam that Britons have enjoyed for generations will be lost, turning the preserve into “gloopy sludge” that tasted like “coloured mud”.
She said, “If the total sugar percentage is reduced, the characteristic gel in the consistency of jams, jellies and marmalades will be lost, and the result will be a homogenised, spreadable sludge, bearing no resemblance to the product we know and enjoy in England as British jam.”
