Food Law News - EU - 2019

FoodDrinkEurope Press Release, 24 April 2019

NUTRITION - FoodDrinkEurope: Welcoming the adoption of new EU regulation on industrial transfats

FoodDrinkEurope, representing Europe's food and drink industry, welcomes the adoption of a new EU Regulation which sets a maximum limit on the use of industrial transfats in foods in the EU.

Thanks to significant product reformulation and innovation efforts over the past decades, the vast majority of Europe's food and drink sector has successfully eliminated industrial transfats in foods - to such levels that EFSA concluded already back in 2004 that the total intake of transfats in most EU Member States is below the WHO recommended level of 1% dietary energy. As a result, EFSA confirmed that, overall, trans fats are not a source of public health concern in the EU.

With today's adoption of the Regulation, food manufacturers will have until 1 April 2021 to ensure products comply with the limit of 2 grams of industrially produced transfats per 100 grams of fat in food intended for the final consumer and food intended for the supply to retail. FoodDrinkEurope is committed to further encourage and support companies, particularly SMEs, who may face technological challenges in achieving this.

Now that a legal limit has been set at EU level, FoodDrinkEurope recommends the deletion of the mandatory labelling requirement for hydrogenation as part of the next round of labelling updates to Regulation (EU) 1169/2011 on the provision of food information to consumers, given that such labelling will be redundant.

See related news item: 24 April 2019 NUTRITION - Food Safety: Commission adopts new Regulation to cut down presence of trans fatty acids

For the regulation, see: Commission Regulation (EU) 2019/649 of 24 April 2019 amending Annex III to Regulation (EC) No 1925/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards trans fat, other than trans fat naturally occurring in fat of animal origin (OJ L110, 25.4.2019, page 17)