EU platform launched to accelerate novel food approvals
The Ministry of Future Affairs has launched a new platform to help companies navigate the EU’s novel food approval process and reduce delays, drawing on lessons from the UK’s regulatory sandbox for cultivated meat.
The Brussels-based think tank launched the New Foods RegLab on October 15th, alongside a paper setting out its proposals. The platform builds on former Prime Minister of Italy Mario Draghi’s call for greater EU investment in innovation, simpler regulation and stronger collaboration between Member States to improve Europe’s competitiveness and economic resilience.
While pre-submission advice supports individual applicants, the proposed platforms would help Member States, European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Commission share knowledge, identify recurring challenges and improve regulatory guidance.
The initiative aims to identify where companies struggle to interpret regulatory guidance and prepare applications, explained Anna Handschuh, founder and managing director of the Ministry of Future Affairs.
“The urgency is real,” she told NutraIngredients. “Companies that developed their ingredients in Europe are scaling up in the United States and elsewhere now, not in three to five years.”
Why it matters: Companies developing novel ingredients, including algae-derived bioactives, precision fermentation products, probiotics, postbiotics, and alternative proteins could reach market more quickly. Better guidance and knowledge sharing may also lower the risk of costly delays and repeated data requests.
New Zealand considering changes to natural health product rules
The New Zealand government is seeking public feedback on proposed requirements for natural health products, including how health claims may be permitted and regulations for pre-market entry, manufacturing and labeling requirements.
The consultation document released this month outlined four approaches to allowing and defining health claims, including automatically recognizing health claims from specified countries, allowing industry to self-substantiate claims based on certain types of scientific evidence and/or evidence of traditional use, and providing a list of pre-approved health claims associated with specific products or ingredients.
The government noted that automatically recognizing health claims from specified countries could help support informed consumer choice and access to a wide range of natural health products.
Allowing industry to self-substantiate product claims based on scientific evidence, on the other hand, could support industry development and exports, while maintaining confidence in New Zealand’s reputation as a manufacturer of quality products that are safe and suitable for their intended use.
The consultation is open until November 2.
“This targeted consultation is the mechanism that will ensure New Zealand value-add innovators can scale into high-growth global consumer wellness categories,” stated Natural Health Products NZ (NHPNZ) Government Affairs Director Samantha Gray in a LinkedIn post.
Why it matters: New Zealand has long been perceived as under-regulated compared with Australia, Canada, and the EU, and a modern framework could improve consumer confidence and international credibility. The proposals will benefit companies with strong scientific substantiation, while firms relying on weak or ambiguous claims could face greater scrutiny.
FDA cites GRAS oversight gaps in push for mandatory notifications
The FDA has proposed replacing its voluntary GRAS (generally recognized as safe) notification system with a mandatory program to address gaps in oversight and improve transparency about food additives in the U.S. food supply. During a recent webinar, agency officials reiterated that updates would give the agency and the public a clearer picture of substances entering the food supply while preserving the legal framework that exempts qualifying GRAS uses from premarket approval as food additives.
Proposed in August, the new rule would replace FDA’s voluntary notification system for substances considered GRAS with a mandatory program covering substances used in human and animal food.
“GRAS is about the safety of a substance under its particular conditions of use,” said Dr. Kristi Muldoon Jacobs, director of the Office of Premarket Additive Safety of the Human Foods Program at FDA, during the webinar. “GRAS is not a general or inherent property of a substance.”
The agency is asking interested parties to review the proposal and submit comments before the public comment period closes on Dec. 9.
Why it matters: The FDA’s proposed mandatory GRAS notification system would increase regulatory scrutiny, transparency, and compliance requirements across the food and nutrition sectors, raising barriers to entry while favoring established ingredient suppliers with strong scientific and safety evidence.
