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Health claims made on foods: Findings on the implementation and application of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006
This European implementation assessment has been drawn up to support the work of the European Parliament's Subcommittee on Public Health (SANT) on its implementation report on Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006. Building on the Commission evaluation report published in 2020, the study assesses the implementation and application of the Regulation on nutrition and health claims made on foods. Health claims and use of health claims on foods containing botanicals are at the heart of this study, while nutrition ...
Vulnerable consumers
Compared to the average consumer, who is considered to be able to make rational choices to find the best deals and benefit from competitive markets, vulnerable consumers are not considered to be able to do so for a variety of reasons. There are two main approaches to identifying vulnerable consumers. One emphasises those individual characteristics of the consumer that increase the (theoretical) risk of becoming vulnerable, such as low socio-economic status, low education level, not being able to ...
Dual quality of products – State of play
In recent years, the concern that some branded products might be inferior in the Member States that have joined the European Union (EU) since 2004 has become ever more apparent. This concern has come to be known as the 'dual quality of products'. To address the issue, between 2018 and 2019, the European Commission's Joint Research Service (JRC) compared a set of branded food products sold under the same name and in the same or similar packaging across Member States – the first time a harmonised testing ...
Reconsidering the General Food Law
On 11 April 2018, the European Commission published a proposal to review the General Food Law Regulation and amend eight legislative acts dealing with specific food chain sectors. The proposal follows up on the European Citizens' Initiative on glyphosate; and especially on concerns regarding the transparency of the scientific studies used in the evaluation of pesticides. The proposal also responds to a fitness check of the General Food Law, completed in January 2018. The proposal's objective is to ...
Food chain risk assessment transparency
Following controversies surrounding the authorisation and renewal of certain sensitive products, such as genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and active substances in plant protection products (glyphosate, neonicotinoids), the European Commission has proposed to revise and harmonise transparency rules in these policy areas. A vote to finalise Parliament's position took place at the December 2018 plenary. A provisional agreement reached in trilogue negotiations on 11 February 2019 is now awaiting ...
Mandatory origin-labelling schemes in Member States
Eight EU Member States have launched, or are about to launch, national mandatory labelling schemes for certain food products, mainly for milk and milk used in dairy products, but also meat used in processed foods. The regulatory basis for these national measures is the Regulation on the provision of food information to consumers, which allows Member States to adopt additional national measures concerning the mandatory labelling of foodstuffs, as long as these are justified by reasons specifically ...
Siguranța alimentară
Politica europeană în materie de siguranță alimentară are două obiective principale: protejarea sănătății umane și a intereselor consumatorilor și promovarea bunei funcționări a pieței unice europene. Astfel, Uniunea Europeană se asigură că sunt stabilite și respectate norme de control în domenii precum igiena produselor alimentare și a furajelor, sănătatea animalelor, sănătatea plantelor și prevenirea contaminării produselor alimentare cu substanțe externe. Uniunea reglementează, de asemenea, etichetarea ...
The EU's General Food Law Regulation: An introduction to the founding principles and the fitness check
The General Food Law Regulation (Regulation (EC) No 178/2002) was drafted following a series of food incidents in the EU in the late 1990s, including the BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) outbreak and the dioxin scare. It is the act underpinning current EU food and feed legislation and defines its general principles, requirements and aims. The regulation also established the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), an independent agency tasked with providing decision makers with scientific advice ...
Transatlantic regulatory patterns overall and in four key sectors: food, automobiles, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals indicate that the EU risk regulation is not always or generally more stringent or precautionary than the US regulation. In fact, the reality is a complex mix of parity and particularity. While there is overall EU-US similarity, there is also variation. In some risk matters, and across and within sectors, there is more precaution in Europe, whereas in others it may be in the US. Even ...
Insects – soon to be a regulated food?
There is increasing interest in the EU – as in other parts of the world – about how to make use of insect protein in animal feed and human food. While most EU Member States have forbidden the use of insects as human food, others have adopted a more flexible approach, allowing some products on their markets. Until now, EU legislation on insects for human food had had an uncertain stance, but the revised Regulation on novel foods will change this.