Health and nutrition claims – guidance, regulation and self‐regulation

Abstract

AbstractThe law on nutrition and, especially, health claims on food is complex and evolving. There is a widely felt need for guidance and dialogue between stakeholders. A well‐attended seminar was organised in September 2016 that brought together regulators, enforcement practitioners and the trade and appeared to go some way to addressing this need. It was generally agreed that several next steps are desirable: to run the seminar again (e.g. in the north of England); to develop a multiple stakeholder forum in order to arrive at correct interpretation and shorten the decision‐making process in difficult cases; to introduce an ‘improvement notice’ option for UK implementation of Regulation 1924/2006; and to develop a checklist for use in examining labels and advertisements. This paper offers an illustration of how this might be commenced; readers are invited to comment. More guidance on priorities and analytical methods is needed for food and food supplements for which health claims are made. The US and European Union regulatory and enforcement attitudes to health claims have developed in quite different directions. With the withdrawal of the UK from the European Union, it will be interesting to see what challenges there are ahead for the protection of consumers and responsible businesses from food health fraud.