Looking for a cookbook for successful health claim application: 4^th International Conference "Health and Nutrition Claims"

Fresenius Conference discussed legal framework, challenges and opportunities for Health and Nutrition Claims from 8 to 9 May 2012

Dortmund, Mainz / Germany, 16.05.2012

An increasing number of foods sold in the EU bear nutrition and health claims. A nutrition and health claim states or suggests that a food has beneficial nutritional properties, such as "low fat", "no added sugar" and "high in fiber". Health claims are set to be drastically limited in the EU. On 21 March 2012 the Environment Committee of the European Parliament confirmed a proposal of the European Commission to prohibit 1,600 health claims, most of them relating to probiotics. In the course of May 2012 the European Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation is about to achieve one of its main deliverables: The so-called Article 13 list of accepted claims is expected to be officially published in the course of May. Food companies then have six months to adapt labels, brochures, websites etc, and remove any claim that is no longer allowed. The 4th International Conference "Health and Nutrition Claims" hosted by Akademie Fresenius and SGS Institut Fresenius on the 8^th and 9^th of May in Mainz near Frankfurt / Germany brought food experts together to discuss not only the current draft of the positive list of permitted health claims but also the current state of affairs and next steps. Fundamental issues remain to be effectively addressed.

Between 2008 and 2011 the Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA Panel) of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has assessed 3000 food-related health claims to determine whether they were supported by sound scientific evidence. The process of "providing sound scientific evidence" is far from being clearly defined as the Dutch nutritionist Stoffer Loman from NutriClaim explained: "The recent past has shown that getting your Health Claim application successfully past the EFSA evaluation phase is a perilous enterprise". His observation: "Although guidance documents on the scientific substantiation of health claims have been published, EFSA acknowledges that these are ‘living’ documents’ implicating that the guidance provided therein is not a cookbook for successful health claim application."

Preparation of a dossier: many open questions, many ambiguities

Andrea Völker from BASF also discussed the procedure of health claim applications referring to the legal framework of Article 6 of the Regulation and sees many uncertainties and open questions. She referred to current legislation and pointed out that it is not specified precisely which data in which form have to be submitted to substantiate different types of claims: "Various procedures to authorize a nutrition or health claim strengthen the impression that scientific substantiation may be handled in different ways on the basis of ‘generally accepted scientific evidence’."

Sports nutrition products: no case for PARNUTS

On 29 February 2012, the European Parliament Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI Committee) voted unanimously to support significant amendments to the draft European Commission Regulation concerning food intended for infants and young children and food intended for special medical purposes. The draft Regulation, published in June 2011, proposed the repeal of existing legislation relating to foods for particular nutritional uses (PARNUTS). The PARNUTS Framework Directive sets out a common definition of foods for particular nutritional uses and established general rules to ensure product safety, suitability and appropriate consumer information, including a general notification procedure and common labeling rules. However, the EP ENVI Committee voted to make a number of amendments to the European Commission′s proposal. Significantly, although the Committee members supported the abolition of the concept of PARNUTS foods, they considered that foods intended for use in energy-restricted diets for weight reduction should remain within the scope of the proposed Regulation. On the Fresenius Conference, Suzane Leser, Vice-Chair of ESSNA (the European Specialist Sports Nutrition Alliance) explained ESSNA’s position on the current legislative process. ESSNA supports the EU Commission proposal and the opinion that current general food law is proportionate to regulate sports foods. ESSNA also supports the ENVI Committee opinion that sports foods must be out of PARNUTS scope and that the EU Commission must assess general food law to ensure recognition of the needs of sports people: "Given the wide diversity of products used by different groups of the population – from high performance athletes to recreational and lifestyle users – sports nutrition products are not clearly distinguishable from general foods as per the current PARNUTS definition."

The complete Fresenius conference documentation including scripts from all the presentations can be purchased at the Akademie Fresenius for 295,00 € (plus VAT) or here.

Contact details:

Die Akademie Fresenius GmbH
Jessika Turrek

Alter Hellweg 46
44379 Dortmund
Germany

Phone +49 231 75896-74
Fax +49 231 75896-53
E-Mail jturrek@akademie-fresenius.de
Internet www.akademie-fresenius.com

Looking for a cookbook for successful health claim application: 4th International Conference "Health and Nutrition Claims"

Fresenius Conference discussed legal framework, challenges and opportunities for Health and Nutrition Claims from 8 to 9 May 2012

Contact details:

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Looking for a cookbook for successful health claim application: 4^th International Conference "Health and Nutrition Claims"