FSA News Item, 21 December 2010
There are currently temporary exemptions from allergen labelling requirements for both egg albumin and milk (casein) used as fining agents for wine, and lysozyme (produced from egg) used in wine, until 31 December 2010. The European Commission have recently agreed a regulation that will extend these temporary exemptions for a further 18 months until 30 June 2012.
This extension will give the wine industry the opportunity to present dossiers to the Commission to support permanent exemptions for these materials. This regulation has not yet been published in the Official Journal and therefore the UK authorities have not been able to enact the necessary national legislation, although this will be done as soon as is possible.
It would therefore be best practice for enforcement officers and wine inspectors to take this situation into account when considering the accuracy of labelling on wines.
The Food Labelling (Declaration of Allergens) (England) Regulations 2009 came into force on 20 November 2009 and implement the enforcement requirements for Commission Regulation (EC) 415/2009, amending Directive 2007/68/EC (which in turn amends Annex IIIA to Directive 2000/13/EC).
Note: Subsequent to this new item appearing, the Regulation was published in the Official Journal. See: