BBURSON-MARSTELLER URSON-MARSTELLER IINSIGHT NSIGHT
Food policy in the EU: where next? A full plate of issues... but too much to digest? September 2010
T
he safety, quality, labelling, nutritional value, marketing and origin of the food we eat are issues that have come increasingly under the spotlight in recent years. Disquiet over how we produce food, such as over the use of GMOs; the worrying rise in obesity, especially among children; and unease about the truthfulness of marketing claims on food are all issues that have risen quickly and high up the political agenda across Europe. The last decade has seen unprecedented political and legislative activity in Brussels as the EU has attempted to address these and other concerns expressed by EU citizens, by health and consumer groups, by Members of the European Parliament, and by member state governments. Yet much of it is unfinished business: the debate over food labelling, re-opened in 2008, is ongoing; the regulation of health claims on foods is far from complete, nearly four years after legislation was agreed; the law on novel foods is in the process of being revised; and GMOs remain a perennial source of debate. This Burson-Marsteller Insight looks at some of the items on the EU’s food policy agenda and their potential impact on industry and consumers, bringing together in a single summary the key issues in this increasingly controversial area of policy.
Health claims Tying up the myriad loose ends APPROVAL OF HEALTH CLAIMS More than six months after the stated deadline for the approval of a list of so-called ‘generic’ health claims on foods, the Commission is yet to approve even the first batch of claims. This approval is likely in the autumn – but will in many ways be the easy part of the process. Further batches of claims will be sent for Commission approval following the assessment of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) – and there is already a feeling in the Commission that the second batch, already evaluated by EFSA, will prove more difficult than the first.
The problems centre on a few key issues, including scientific criteria for the substantiation of claims, notably raising the critical question as to whether the criteria used by EFSA are appropriate to the assessment food, and the pertinence of some studies for claims substantiation (for example, eligibility of proof obtained from studies on people who are ill). Closely linked to this is the issue of target populations, and more specifically, the extrapolation of the results from specific populations to the overall population.. Other issues include ‘insufficient characterisation’ of a food or ingredient and its health effect, and where to draw the borderline between foods and pharmaceuticals. To try to address these problems, EFSA has intensified its contact with companies, trade groups, and other stakeholders.
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The Commission also faces difficulties about the legal use of claims as the various batches of claims are approved – and whether rejected claims are illegal immediately, or only after all four batches of claims have been assessed by EFSA and examined by the Commission. Whatever happens, it is clear that the Regulation on nutrition and health claims, after an uneasy birth, is having a troubled infancy. There is almost certainly going to be a clamour from the food industry, as well as from health and consumer groups, for improvements to the law when the Commission reports on the situation regarding health claims, and the impact of the Regulation on dietary choices. This report is due to appear in 2012.
NUTRIENT PROFILES After surviving a knife-edge parliamentary vote in June 2010 regarding their deletion from the Claims Regulation, nutrient profiles are now back on the agenda. Profiles – which limit access to claims to those foods that have a healthy ‘profile’ in terms of salt, saturated fat and sugar content – have long been seen by critics as arbitrary, unscientific, and ‘nannying’. For supporters, they are an essential element of the law, stopping what they see as the absurdity of foods that are high in fat, salt or sugar from being able to be marketed as ‘healthy’. Against this backdrop, the Commission has some difficult choices to make, which it will address in the autumn: will it allow ‘traditional’ foods, such as bread, to bear a