Health Claims
The European Commission adopted its Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation in December last year, and it became applicable on 1 July 2007.
The Regulation aims to harmonise nutrition and health claims made in foods and food supplements across the EU by:
- establishing a procedure for new claims to be made
- determining the claims that can and cannot be made
- setting general principles for all claims
- setting principles for commercial communications, such as labeling and advertising
- impacting on all commercial messages promoting food and food supplement products.
The Regulation requires the scientific substantiation of claims and pre-market approval of all claims used, through a review by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). It also provides for the establishment of a list of approved claims based on generally accepted scientific evidence (article 13 list).
In the absence of Commission or EFSA guidelines, ERNA in cooperation with the European Federation of Health Product manufacturers (EHPM) and CIAA, has developed and EU Industry list of hundreds of article 13 claims. This list has been submitted to national authorities for consideration and inclusion on their Member State lists submitted to EFSA.