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...