Rolling out the products – why consumers deserve more

Europe’s food industry wants a faster and cheaper approvals system for so-called novel foods. Emily Smith reports.

Food safety scares have become commonplace in Europe in recent years. Sometimes, as with the dioxin contamination in Belgium in 1999 and the various chapters of the mad cow disease saga, they cause political crises. At all times, they cause economic disruption and damage brand reputations.

For the food industry, ensuring safety is hugely important. "Food safety is the key condition for putting anything on the EU market. It affects everything we do," said Beate Kettlitz, food policy, science and research director of the Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries of the European Union (CIAA).

She points out that the food industry’s interest in the safety of European diets is not limited to one or two EU proposals. The 75 CIAA member organisations focus on issues ranging from reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to the assessment of new food additives. Kettlitz said that guaranteeing the safety of food ingredients has to be considered at every stage of production.

She singled out a revision of 1997 rules on ‘novel foods’ as a particular source of current interest.

‘Novel foods’ under EU law mean products not commonly eaten in the Union before May 1997. The definition covers products including food additives used to lower cholesterol, as well as some exotic foods. Genetically modified (GM) foods were originally covered by the novel regulation but now falls under separate legislation.

According to Kettlitz, the review, which started with a consultation last year, gives Europe a chance to speed up its approval system. An average approval can take more than two years in the EU, compared with three months in the US. The EU novel foods regulation has, over the ten years since it was agreed, approved 14 foods for marketing, and rejected two applications.

Kettlitz said that Europe also needs a clearer definition of what constitutes a novel food, to avoid practical and legal problems.

"Of course industry is concerned with getting a good return on new products," she said, justifying the need to streamline authorisations, "but consumers also have an interest in seeing as many safe new foods available as possible on the supermarket shelf".

The top food safety concern for industry, however, is implemen-tation of a new health claims regulation. This legislation sets out to make sure that all EU food is "safe and adequately labelled" in the same way across 27 countries. It reflects growing European concerns that, although the food we eat is now increasingly ‘safe’ in the traditional sense - with laws and agencies in place to monitor ingredients for pesticides, toxins and bacteria - our overall diets may not be safe.

Over the coming years, the regulation will ban all health claims for foods high in fat, salt and sugar, and limit the nutritional claims that can be made on foods containing high levels of one of these three nutrients: widely linked to poor health and obesity, among other potentially life-threatening conditions.

‘Health claims’ means linking consumption of a food with improved health, while ‘nutrition claims’ means drawing attention to ingredients considered healthy, like vitamin C.

Although agreed in 2006, the claims regulation has a long way to go before it will make a noticeable difference on supermarket shelves. A list of acceptable health claims has to be agreed, as do nutritional profiles defining what is meant by ‘high’ when referring to salt, fat or sugar content.

Both lists will be drawn up over the next three years, with the help of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Industry will then have two years to change its labelling systems.

Food companies will also have to apply to have food health claims authorised at EU level - a process some industry specialists have estimated could cost up to €150,000 per product.

The CIAA says it has not assessed the total cost, but that authorisations are likely to be slow and expensive. Sabine Nafziger, CIAA consumer information, diet and health director, said the main concern was that authorisations will only be valid for five years, after which companies would have to reapply for approval.

"This is unlikely to encourage European innovation," she said.

"Even if it is too late to change the ‘five years’ decision," Nafzinger added, "we still want to keep making this point. We do not want this to set a precedent for other dossiers."

Europe’s food industry wants a faster and cheaper approvals system for so-called novel foods. Emily Smith reports.