With EFSA rejecting almost 80% of health claims submitted under article 13.1, industry is rightly concerned. However, these opinions are not yet law. Although EFSA has given its opinion and the commission intends to publish the list, the European parliament has still 3 months to look at the opinions and their implementation through the regulatory procedure with scrutiny, which could in theory mean a potential chance to block their adoption into law. If parliament finds that the legislation and its implementation is not inline with the mother regulation then they can veto it, essentially blocking...

Gaining a health claim is one thing but gaining one that makes sense to the general public is another. As part of the general conditions of article 13 claims (Art 13(1)ii) a health claim must be ‘well understood by the average consumer’. Claims must also protect the consumer from being misled, and balancing these two issues is causing some difficulties when the Commission is to provide guidance on the flexibility of claim wording. In a recent meeting between the Commission and Member States (MS) on the 12th April 2010, the issue of how flexible EFSA approved claim wording could be was discussed....

As part of the Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation (NHCR) EFSA was to implement and set the criteria for what is an acceptable nutrient profile for foods carrying an approved health claim. Nutrient profiles (Article 4) were added to the regulation to avoid a situation where using a health claim on label could potentially mask a poor nutritional status (i.e. high fat or high sugar) of a food product. As such the development of specific criteria governing the circumstances in which claims can be made are a vital component of the NHCR. Despite the requirement for nutrient profiles in the regulation...

In the latest batch of 31 opinions (grouped from 416 submissions) from EFSA’s NDA panel we can see that this process of assessment is setting a precedent for the acceptance of only vitamins and minerals. The big losers are not unexpected antioxidants and probiotic based claims which have been rejected across the board. For the industry this is scary especially for the likes of the superfruit / smoothie market and giants such as Innocent, known for their use of the term Antioxidant on marketing materials and commercial communications. The opinions relate not only to the lack of characterisation...

As of the 19th of January 2010 ‘nutrition claims’ such as low GI, Isotonic and hypotonic are under threat by enforcement bodies throughout the EU. For those in the weight management or sports nutrition market, labelling and other forms of commercial communication using such claims could be removed by enforcement agencies. Under the terms of the Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation (EC No 1924/2006) those claims not currently contained within the 24 approved claims in the Annex (Article 8 ) cannot legally be maintained. The Annex of the regulation provides a list of specific nutrition...

Following the significant damage of the first wave of article 13.1 opinions by EFSA and subsequent 70% rejection rate, what can industry do now given EFSA will not re-assess these claims via the 13.1 process, even if new or additional data is available? Well there are potentially 2 routes, firstly is article 13.5 for newly developed scientific data (submitted via the procedures under art 15-18), or secondly via Article 13.4 for claims which meet generally accepted scientific evidence. Article 13.4 of the health claims directive (1924/2006) should be adopted in accordance with article 24(2) relating...

Over 4000+ health claims dossiers submitted to EFSA for review where expected earlier in the summer of 2010 however with vast number to be assessed, EMP elections, and continued discussions between the industry and EFSA has lead to a delay in response. However, recent discussions between EFSA and key European trade organizations have commented that at least some opinions will be released in September. There have been some significant issues with the way generic type health claims would be assessed by EFSA but one of the side issues has been the way these opinions would be released. Initially,...

In one of the largest Pan European studies on consumer research the European Food Information Council (EFIC) have investigated the influence of food labeling on behavior and food choice.  The study surveyed 17,300 consumers in six European countries at home and in supermarkets. Initial results show that colour-coded nutrition labeling schemes have the tendency to be misleading. According to a recently released EUFIC study only about 18% of the European consumers check processed foods for nutrition information. Color coded nutrition information schemes such as the British traffic lights scheme...

In the latest issue of the McKinsey Quarterly consultants Betsy Bohlen and Kristi Weaver give the lowdown on the latest impact the deep recession is having on the consumer goods market. As we all know the recession affects spending on different categories of consumer goods in different ways. The McKinsey analysis compared consumer spending during some major downturn periods (over 1990-91 to 2001-02). They also compared these with average growth rates over the period 1984-2006. The evidence shows that during a downturn consumers do shift in purchasing behavior, however instead of making cuts across...