The Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 became applicable on 1 July 2007. It focuses on nutrition and health claims made in foods and food supplements, with the aim of harmonising the legal situation across the EU.
The Regulation:
- sets general principles for all claims
- determines what claims can and cannot be made
- establishes a procedure for new claims to be made
- states which foods will not be able to make claims
- applies to commercial communications, i.e. labelling, presentation and advertising of products
- will have an important impact on all commercial messages promoting food and food supplement products.
Notably, the Regulation requires the scientific substantiation of claims and pre-market approval of all claims used, which involves a review by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). It also provided for the establishment of a list of approved claims based on generally accepted scientific evidence (article 13 list).
While EHPM welcomes legislation that allows the use of health claims and disease risk reduction claims across the entire EU, there is serious cause for concern in terms of the type of evidence EFSA needs to substantiate claims, uncertainty regarding the scope of certain types of claims, and transitory periods, all of which need to be clarified.
In the absence of Commission or EFSA guidelines, EHPM took the lead, in co-operation with other stakeholders (ERNA, CIAA), to develop guidance to its members on a substantiation methodology for claims and successfully launch a collection exercise of claims at EU level. This list of claims has now been submitted to the Commission through various member states, and we expect EFSA's evalution of article 13 claims in June 2008.
EHPM is closely monitoring developments at EFSA, particularly the discussions on the criteria for claims evaluation. We will continue our dialogue with EFSA and the Commission to ensure a balanced and smooth implementation of the Regulation through a practical interpretation of its provisions.