Foodlaw-Reading Dr David Jukes, The University of Reading, UK
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Food Law News - EU - 2020

Commission consultation, 23 December 2020

LABELLING - Food labelling - revision of rules on information provided to consumers

Commission consultation: INCEPTION IMPACT ASSESSMENT - Proposal for a revision of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on the provision of food information to consumers A copy of this document is available on this site (click on image).

The document has been issued as part of a consultation exercise. The Commission has provided two separate consultation pages (although the same document is provided in both). For more details, see the consultation pages at: Facilitating healthier food choices – establishing nutrient profiles and Food labelling - revision of rules on information provided to consumers. Both of the consultation pages closes on 3 February 2021.

The following is the initial 'Context' from the document:

The European Commission adopted the “Farm to Fork Strategy for a fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly food system” on 20 May 2020, as part of the European Green Deal. This strategy aims to reduce the environmental and climate footprint of the EU food system and facilitate the shift to healthy and sustainable diets. The strategy targets the entire food chain and describes, amongst others, the need to stimulate sustainable food processing and reformulation, to further empower consumers through labelling information and to reduce food waste.

The Farm to Fork Strategy announces that the Commission will take a number of actions, including the following:

• A proposal for a harmonised mandatory front-of-pack nutrition labelling. The Commission adopted a report on front-of-pack nutrition labelling, accompanying the Farm to Fork Strategy, which builds upon literature review and data gathered and analysed by the Joint Research Centre;
• The setting of ‘nutrient profiles’ restricting the promotion (via nutrition and health claims) of foods that are high in fats, sugars and/or salt. Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims made on foods (‘Claims Regulation’) already required the setting of nutrient profiles, and the recent evaluation of that Regulation, published alongside the Farm to Fork Strategy, concludes that the setting of nutrient profiles remains relevant and necessary to ensure a high level of consumer protection;
• Consider proposing the extension of mandatory origin or provenance indications to certain products; and,
• A revision of the EU rules on date marking (‘use by’ and ‘best before’).

The objective of the present initiative is to follow-up on these announcements via a revision of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on the provision of food information to consumers (FIC Regulation). As also announced in the Farm to Fork Strategy, the Commission will develop a sustainable food labelling framework in synergy with other relevant initiatives including this one and taking into account possible development in the area of digital information.