FoodDrinkEurope Disappointed by EU Committee's Decision to Reject Revised Nutrition Labels

Date:01 February 2012

Type:Packaging & Technology News

Source:Food Ingredients First

Sector:General Company & Ingredient Information

Summary:MEP’s yesterday backed a resolution opposing new labels recommended by the European Commission. The resolution will be considered by the full Parliament after gaining support from a cross-section of political groups in the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee. FoodDrinkEurope expresses regret at the outcome of the Committee's vote and the lack of scope for nutrition claims permitted by the current regulations.

Feb 1 2012 --- A proposal to give food manufacturers more scope to promote their products as low in fat, sugar or salt has suffered a major setback after a parliamentary committee voted to block the proposed changes to nutritional labels. The issue will be put to the vote of the whole European Parliament this Thursday.

MEP’s yesterday (31 January) backed a resolution opposing new labels recommended by the European Commission. The resolution will be considered by the full Parliament after gaining support from a cross-section of political groups in the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee.

MEP’s decided yesterday to back a resolution opposing new label regulations that had been recommended by the European Commission. The resolution will be considered in EU Parliament tomorrow.

The Commission has proposed amending the previous regulations to add new nutritional categories that would allow food companies to claim reformulated foods have a minimum of 15% less fat, sugar or salt than earlier products, and a no-added salt label. The current regulations state that the use of a “reduced” label must mean that a product reformulation crosses the threshold of 30% less of an ingredient.

FoodDrinkEurope released a statement today stating that they strongly regret “the negative outcome of the vote in the European Parliament’s Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee for the revised nutrition claims list recently adopted by the Council.”

FoodDrinkEurope strongly supports the use of nutrition claims ‘on pack’ to ensure that consumers are informed of a specific nutritional benefit or a nutritional improvement that has been made to a recipe.

“The outcome of today’s vote, if confirmed in the EP plenary vote on 2 February, would mean consumers would not be informed of the benefits of incremental nutritional changes/improvements to products and food operators would have less possibility to communicate their reformulation efforts, presenting disincentives to invest in costly R&D and innovation techniques for the European market.”

The full EU Parliament vote on the regulation takes place tomorrow.