Who can win an EU immunity claim? Yeast beta-glucan can?

30-Nov-2012 - Last updated on 28-Sep-2021 at 09:35 GMT

Related tags Nutrition European food safety authority

German yeast specialist Leiber possesses the only immune health claim in the EU assessment system at the moment. But why should its beta-glucan yeast succeed when it has already failed once?

Leiber business unit director in health and functional food, Eike Hagemen, tells why close attention to European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) guidance detail has his company feeling confident.

“With our second trial [added to dossier] we feel like we have filled in all the needed information that the EFSA said that they wanted,” he said.

He said the trial overcame previous ad-hoc analysis problems highlighted by EFSA in rejecting its article 13.5, 2010 dossier, and focused on an functional, end-point claim, rather than a general immune claim based on blood parameters.

The proposed claim is: “…helps to maintain the body’s defence against pathogens in the upper respiratory tract.”

Leiber has 125 employees and has been working in yeast extracts for 60 years and has about 50% of its business in animal nutrition and 50% in human nutrition. It recently established a healthy ingredients division.