Food Law News - EU - 2008


FSA Consultation Letter, 7 March 2008

LABELLING – EU Proposals for amendments to the nutrition labelling rules: FSA consultation letter

A copy of the EU consultation package is available on this site. See: EU Nutirition Labelling Proposals

The Agency seeks views and comments on the European Commission's proposal to amend the Nutrition Labelling Directive (90/496/EEC). The key proposals are a definition of dietary fibre, new energy conversion factors for fibre and erythritol and updating Recommended Daily Allowances (RDAs) for vitamins and minerals. Responses are requested by 11 April 2008

Consultation details

The European Commission has produced a working document of a draft Directive to amend Directive 90/496/EEC (the 'Amending Directive') in relation to: RDAs, energy conversion factors and definitions. The Agency will be considering how the proposal can benefit consumers and industry, and will work with stakeholders to ensure UK views are represented. The comments received from this consultation will help inform the Government in its negotiations on the proposal.

The Commission has indicated it will be issuing an updated version of the proposed Amending Directive in the latter part of March, at which point Member States will have one month to comment. It is not anticipated there will be significant changes to the current draft proposed Amending Directive and so we are consulting on the current draft to give stakeholders the maximum amount of time possible to respond. Any updated proposal will be made available on this web page as soon as it is available, with differences highlighted to inform responses.

Once the Amending Directive is adopted, a consequential amendment will be created to the proposed Food Information Regulation.

Key Issues

The Amending Directive:

Stakeholder views have been previously sought on these technical issues in a letter to interested parties, dated 24 May 2006, requesting stakeholder comment on the European Commission discussion paper on technical issues within the Nutrition Labelling Directive.

The transition period for this legislation has not yet been determined. A long transitional period should minimise costs to industry to implement the necessary changes to labels required by this legislation. We would welcome stakeholder views on suitable transition periods.

An initial Impact Assessment can be found at the link below. It summarises the estimated costs and benefits, based on available data, of the proposal. We would like to refer respondents to the specific questions set out within this document. We would also welcome any additional comments or data you may be able to provide.

In addition to the above we would welcome any views from all stakeholders with regards to:

All respondents should seek to set out their rationale and supply evidence to back up facts and figures used.


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