1. Summary
The term ‘Grey Market Goods’ is used to describe products that are not formulated, labelled, or intended to be sold on the market in Great Britain (GB), and which may therefore be non-compliant with GB domestic and assimilated European Union (EU) legislation. Not all Grey Market Goods are non-compliant.
This guidance is intended to help Scottish Local Authority (LA) Authorised Officers with the interpretation and enforcement of relevant food law for these ‘Grey Market Goods’ arriving to and placed on the market in Scotland.
For the purposes of this information, the term ‘officer’ refers to Local Authority officers authorised to enforce food law.
This document does not constitute legal advice and should not be taken as an authoritative statement or interpretation of the law, as only the courts have this power. It is the responsibility of individual Local Authorities to decide how they will enforce food law, and they are encouraged to seek their own legal advice on a case-by-case basis.
This guidance refers to food law as it applies in Scotland. Similar guidance has been produced by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to cover the rest of the United Kingdom (UK).
Any reference in this document to EU law or “EC regulation” etc., unless otherwise stated, should be considered a reference to law that was assimilated into domestic legislation by the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023. This document will be updated as and when required with any new information that is made available relating to Grey Market Goods.