FSA Enforcement Letter (ENF/E/13/029), 2 July 2013
You may be aware that Defra and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) are looking to consolidate National legislation on Natural Mineral Water, Spring Water and Bottled Drinking Water. The aim is to have new regulations in place by next April, which we propose will more closely match the requirements of the European Directive on Natural Mineral Water in terms of permitted treatments, and in addition, will also propose removing the national requirement for minimum hardness (calcium content) in waters which have been softened/de-salinated. A public consultation is envisaged for the autumn and details will follow in due course.
As part of this consultative work, Defra and the FSA are currently reviewing data on spring water production and are carrying out as a survey, the aim of which is to establish the scale and development of the spring water industry across the UK.
Work has already been carried out to look into this and some of you will have been involved in a providing information last year in order to determine the those businesses using ultra violet treatment in spring water production. It is now appropriate to carry out a more in depth survey in order to assess spring water production practices across the UK. It is kindly requested that you engage with businesses in your jurisdiction and request that they provide detailed information is on spring water production. Local Authorities Officers who responded to last year’ s survey with a nil return are also requested to confirm either that this still remains the case or to liaise with the producer in order to provide appropriate details via the survey
Please therefore, forward the following link to this survey, to the businesses in your area engaged in Natural Mineral Water; Spring Water; Bottled Drinking Water and / or any soft drink production which uses naturally sourced water. Please note, the closing date for the survey is August 30 2013.
Survey Link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SLR7P8K