Implementing Regulation (EU) No 543/2011 allows the marketing of packages of a net weight of 5 kg or less containing mixes of different species of fruit and vegetables. To ensure fair trading and to respond to the demand from certain consumers for such mixes, identical rules should apply to packages containing different species of fruit and packages containing different species of vegetables.

From 2013 to 2017 the Working Party on Agricultural Quality Standards of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE) revised the UN/ECE standards for apples, citrus fruit, kiwifruit, lettuces, curled-leaved and broad-leaved endives, peaches and nectarines, pears, strawberries, sweet peppers, table grapes and tomatoes. In order to avoid unnecessary barriers to trade, the general and specific marketing standards for those fruits and vegetables provided for in Implementing Regulation (EU) No 543/2011 should be aligned with the new UN/ECE standards.

In particular, the UN/ECE standards require the indication of the ISO 3166 (alpha) country/area code in combination with the code mark representing the packer or dispatcher when the packer or dispatcher has a physical address in a country different from the country of origin of the products. That requirement should be included in Annex I to Implementing Regulation (EU) No 543/2011.

Regulation (EU) No 543/2011 should therefore be amended accordingly.

In order to give operators sufficient time to adapt to the new requirement relating to the country code, they should be allowed to use existing officially issued or accepted code marks representing the packer or dispatcher until 31 December 2019,