Eversheds Food and Drink Seminar - Health Nutrition Labelling Presentation 3rd October 2013 - Katharine Vickery, Eversheds LLP. Current Developments - What’s changed over the past 12 months? • Nutrition and Health Claims: register of approved claims What's changed available and informal guidance available; • New regulation on Generic Descriptors under Article 1(4); • Judgment on Article 13.5 claims; • Front of Pack Labeling Scheme introduced; and • ECJ gives second ruling on meaning of Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation.

1. Food and Drink Seminar
Health, nutrition and labelling –
staying ahead of the changes
Katharine Vickery, Eversheds LLP
3rd October 2013
#thinkfoodlaw

2. Current Developments
• Nutrition and Health Claims: register of approved claims
available and informal guidance available;
• New regulation on Generic Descriptors under Article 1(4);
• Judgment on Article 13.5 claims;
• Front of Pack Labeling Scheme introduced; and
• ECJ gives second ruling on meaning of Nutrition and Health
Claims Regulation.
What’s changed over the past 12 months?

3. Health and Nutrition claims
Additional claims and new guidance
1. 222 approved claims issued in December 2012 and
more being added;
2. Barry Callebaut AG – successful claim application in
relation to cocoa flavanols;
3. Three successful heart health claims for Omega 3.

4. Informal Guidance issued
• Informal guidance issued in January 2013.
• Guidance provided by 17 experts from Member
States who met to discuss common approach for
FBOs.
• The guidance is 6 pages long and is not legally
binding.

5. Contents of the Informal Guidance
1. Adjusting the wording of a claim;
2. The use of the term “normal”;
3. The link between the claimed effect and the nutrient,
substance, food or food category responsible for the effect;
4. Considerations for health claims about food supplements;
5. Presentation of general, non-specific health claims;
6. Trade mark, brand name or fancy name; and
7. Reference to excerpts from EFSA opinions.

6. Update to Article 1(4) - Generic
Descriptors
• a term which has traditionally been used to indicate a
particularity of a class of foods or beverages and which
could imply an effect on human health e.g. include ‘tonic
water’, ‘digestive biscuits’, ‘cough drops’
• the Commission has laid down the procedure FBOs must
follow to be exempted from requiring a generic descriptor
to be accompanied by a related and authorised nutrition or
health claim

7. UK Front of Pack Labelling Scheme
• Voluntary Scheme introduced in June 2013
• Specific label (shown below)
• Highlights 'percentage reference intakes'

8. ECJ ruling on meaning of Nutrition and
Health Claims Regulation
• Case of Green Swan Pharmaceuticals July 2013;
• Claim will be categorized as a “reduction of disease risk claim” if
the consumer understands it to suggest a significant reduction in
a risk factor for disease.

9. What’s on the Horizon?

10. What’s on the horizon?
• Get ready for Food Information Regulations – enforce from
13 December 2014:
• Botanicals – a decision due?
• Challenges to front of pack labeling?

11. Food Information to Consumer
Regulation – are you prepared?
Changes include:
•Minimum font size for mandatory information
•Nutrition labelling
•Mandatory information on allergens
•Extension of rules for origin of food labelling
•Possible change to “engineered nanomaterials”

12. Timetable for Implementation
• The labelling requirements will come into effect in 2014
• The obligations for nutrition labelling will not apply until
2016
• Implementing legislation in UK
• Impact on all labels in the end, but in particular consider
– labelling redesign and product relaunch projects
– new product development

13. Food Information to Consumer
Regulation- Guidance available
• November 2012 – DEFRA Food Information Regulations
2013 Guide to compliance
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachme
nt_data/file/82663/consult-fic-guidance-20121116.pdf

14. DEFRA prepares for EU country of origin
labelling
• DEFRA draft paper dated 10 September 2013;
• Country of origin labelling for fresh meat products under
the FIR to be restricted to member states;
• Expert committee paper defines origin as being the place
of both rearing and slaughtering.

15. Botanicals – what’s next?
• September 2010 – EFSA put on hold the assessment of
1,548 health claims for plants and herbals (botanicals).
• Discussions surround amendment to NHCR or new
regulations.
• Latest indication is that a new regulatory framework could
take 5-6 years to implement.
• Pending legal cases on the unfairness of
claims being ”on-hold”.

16. Challenges to FOP labelling?
• The Italian food industry:“deeply concerned”
• FoodDrinkEurope: “colour coding could fragment the issue
of nutrition labelling in the EU”
• German food industry association, BLL: ”traffic light
system too simplistic” “German consumers prefer GDA
labelling”.

17. Questions?
katharinevickery@eversheds.com
Tel: 0845 497 1771
Join us on Linkedin Eversheds’
Food and Drink Law Group
Follow us on Twitter
@EvershedsFAD