Steve Firth wrote:

As an example, we sell olive oil. I've picked every olive by hand, adied
by my wife. I've personally supervised the pressing, bottling and
labelling. What I sell is good. Yet I still have to perform the same
bureaucratic handstands as someone who buys in all their ingredients and
has no idea what is in what they sell. Not only that, but the big
suppliers deliberately adulterate what they sell, knowing damn well that
there is no analysis that will detect the fact that good olive oil has
been adulterated with bad.


I have every sympathy for your situation, there are many regulations
that impose an undue burden on small businesses. The problem, though, is
that not everyone is honest and devoted to quality as you are. If the
regulation was removed there would be people that would sell crude oil
as olive oil because it was cheaper.

What we have to do is achieve a situation where the burden of regulation
is minimized but the quality is kept as high as possible.

If you don't believe that people would adulterate food in the name of
profit just look at the example of the Austrian wine produced in 1985
which was laced with ethylene glycol!

That's just one example.

[1] As well as several other jobs.