FSA Consultation Letter, 1 November 2004

PARNUTS - Proposal for a Commission Directive on foods intended to meet the expenditure of intense muscular effort

The FSA are seeking views on the European Commission's working document for a draft Commission Directive on foods intended to meet the expenditure of intense muscular effort, especially for sports people and on the partial regulatory impact assessment (RIA) relating to this proposal. Responses are requested by: 28 January 2005

Consultation details

The Commission's working document (dated 20 April 2004 ) is based on two reports of the former EU Scientific Committee on Food and its main provisions

• introduce a definition of the term 'foods intended to meet the expenditure of intense muscular effort';
• lay down compositional rules for certain groups of foods with nutrient adaptation to meet the particular requirements associated with expenditure of intense muscular effort, especially for sports people;
• propose four groups of such products, namely carbohydrate-rich energy foods; carbohydrate-electrolyte solutions; protein concentrates; and protein-enriched foods;
• introduce specific labelling requirements for these products, in addition to the general food labelling requirements in Directive 2000/13/EC.

Details of this consultation

The Commission issued the working document in April of this year and it was discussed at a meeting of Member States' experts on 10 May. The FSA carried out a short consultation on the proposal ahead of that meeting and are now initiating a formal 12-week consultation with the same document. The Commission has not indicated exactly when it intends to issue another version of the proposal.

The Commission document is currently available on the FSA web site at: http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/sancod4hlmmd440182.pdf