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FSA

Traffic light system

fresh, pure, natural guidance

EU FAQ 2008

The regulation aims to simplify existing legislation, but also extends it. Some areas are unclear.

Is the intention to apply full nutrition and allergen labelling to all foods whether sold pre-packed or loose?

Could you comply if it were? It could mean huge increases in labelling costs if you changed a recipe. Testing every product in your range so you could give accurate quantities of nutrients on the label would be expensive.

The current draft of the regulation would allow individual EU members to adopt a particular system of profiling which may not be acceptable to other countries. This could impact on exports within the EU if companies had to label specifically for one country. In the case of the UK, the traffic light system would add significantly to costs as many products are currently labelled only in black and white.

Food solutions has drafted a response to the proposals which will go to the FSA and direct to the Commission.

If you have concerns and make them known to us now, we can put them to the Commission.

If you do nothing, this regulation could make your business uneconomic to run.

Join Food Solutions and get your views to those that really matter.

Labelling Proposal

The FSA consultation details on the regulation for the provision of information to consumers are available. The summary of key issues does not cover all issues that will impact on small food operators. The devil is in the detail. The special FSA Board Meeting on 10th April is discussing objectives to negotiate towards including:

• support mandatory nutrition labelling
• promote the use of the traffic light system
• ensure front and back of pack schemes effectively meet consumers needs
• support calorie labelling on alcoholic drinks

The full text of the draft EC regulation on the provision of food information to consumers (Jan 08 version) can be viewed here.