Food operators welcome Commission announcement to review progressive adoption of permitted health claims

CIAA, the Confederation of the food and drink industries of the EU, today welcomes the European Commission’s announcement to restructure the process by which the list of permitted health claims on food products is adopted.

In contrast to the batch-wise decision approach previously taken by the Commission, Member States and the Commission will adopt one single list of permitted health claims other than ‘botanicals’. This implies that an ‘Omnibus decision’ will be taken for all Article 13.1 health claims other than ‘botanicals’, rather than a decision batch-by-batch. EFSA is expected to finalise its evaluation of the remaining claims (with the exception of ‘botanicals’) by the end of June 2011.

Europe’s food and drink manufacturers, who have continually supported the ‘Omnibus decision’, welcome this move, and believe that this new approach will improve the overall implementation process:

1. It will create more legal certainty for manufacturers and reduce the implementation burdens incurred by multiple labelling changes;
2. It will help in creating a level playing field vis-à-vis an appropriate timeframe for claim approvals, guaranteeing open and fair competition among food manufacturers in their use of health claims and thus, help stimulate innovation; and, finally,
3. It will allow regulators, together with stakeholders, to discuss and devise a coherent approach for various claims (for example, with regard to conditions of use).

CIAA looks forward to further information on progress being made by EFSA during the evaluation of the remaining Article 13.1 health claims in the run up to the June 2011 deadline.