Codex Report, 14 – 17 May 2013

CODEX – Report of the 41st Session of the Codex Committee on Food Labelling

The summary and conclusions of the 41st Session of the Codex Committee on Food Labelling are as follows:

Matters for adoption by the 36th Session of the Commission:

The Committee:

Advanced to Step 8 and 5/8 the following:

• Draft amendments to the Guidelines for Use of Nutrition and Health Claims (CAC/GL 23-1997) concerning Non-Addition of Sodium Salts (Para 41 and Appendix II)
• Proposed Draft amendments to the Guidelines for the Production, Processing, Labelling and Marketing of Organically Produced Foods concerning use of ethylene as sprouting inhibitor for Onions and Potatoes (para 69, Appendix IV)

Fowarded to CAC the following amendments

• Editorial Amendments to the Guidelines for use of Nutrition and Health Claims (CAC/GL 23-1997) concerning clarifying section 6.3 on Comparative Claims (Para 45, Appendix III Part B)
• Amendments to the Guidelines on Nutrition Labelling (CAC/GL 2-1985) concerning definitions and replacing the existing annex with the new Annex: General Principles for establishment of nutrient reference values for the general population (Para 59, Appendix III, Part A)

Other Matters of Interest to the Commission:

The Committee:

• Agreed to circulate the proposed Draft amendments to the Guidelines for the Production, Processing, Labelling and Marketing of Organically Produced Foods: Organic Agriculture at Step 3 for comments and to discuss at the 42nd Session (Para 111, Appendix V);
• Agreed to propose new work to the Commission to review the General Standard for the labelling of Prepackaged Foods to address issues on date marking (para 118, Appendix VI)

Matters referred to other Codex Committees

The Committee:

a) Did not endorse the labelling provisions of the proposed draft regional standard for non fermentation of soyabean products (para 14-26)

b) Agreed to request the CCNFSDU to establish conditions for the free TFAs claims (para 53); and to consider establishing a definition for biofortification (para. 127).

The full report is available at: http://www.codexalimentarius.org/download/report/806/REP13_FLe.pdf