Food Law News - FAO/WHO/WTO/Codex - 2001


FSA Letter, 6 July 2001

LABELLING - Proposed Draft Amendment to the Codex General Standard for the Labelling of Prepackaged Foods: Class Names (Milk Protein / Milk Protein Products)

The Codex Committee on Food Labelling could not reach agreement on a proposal to allow the class names "milk protein" and '.milk protein product" in ingredient lists on prepacked foods when it discussed the issue at its meeting in May this year.

The Committee has discussed this issue extensively at its previous sessions, and is likely to consider dropping the matter next year if progress cannot be made. In the meantime, further comments on the proposal are being sought.

The Codex labelling standard permits the use of certain "class names" for ingredient listing purposes (like "cheese", "herbs", "starch" and "fish"). Similar provisions are contained in European and British food labelling rules, where they are referred to as "category" or "generic" names, and already permit the name "milk protein" to be used in ingredient lists to describe "any caseins, caseinates or whey proteins, or any mixture of these".

The FSA need to submit comments on the proposal to the Codex Secretariat by 15 December.


DRAFT AMENDMENT TO THE GENERAL STANDARD FOR THE LABELLING OF PREPACKAGED FOODS (CLASS NAMES) (At Step 6 of the Procedure)

Section 4.2 List of Ingredients

4.2.2.1 The following class names may be used for the ingredients falling within these classes:

[Milk Protein / Milk Protein Products] : Milk products containing a minimum of [30/35]% of milk protein (m/m) in dry matter*.

* Calculation of milk protein content: Kjeldahl nitrogen x 6.38


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