It has been a tumultuous few years for the European food supplements sector as it has had to learn to live under the world’s toughest health claims regime. Marketing strictures may be tighter than ever but the sector is in a good place, says the chairof...
There is light at the end of the tunnel for a European whey wholesaler, as a long-running dispute over EU import duties on milk fat in whey protein is finally coming to an end.
Over half of eye health supplements on the French market fraudulently contained meso-zeaxanthin, a cheaper and unauthorised stereoisomer of regular zeaxanthin, according to a two-year investigation by a French watchdog.
Cross-border communication must be provided to combat the confusion caused by the 24 subtly different language versions of EU-approved health claims, as well as countless other cultural nuances, according to an EU food law expert.
The Food Information for Consumers regulation (FIC) is set to come into effect this time next year. FoodNavigator spoke with Campden BRI’s principal food law advisor David Leeks to find out what changes to expect.
The stop-and-go, uncoordinated approach of EU-level and national regulators to bans on nutritional supplements including DMAA, dexaprine and synephrine, should be a cause for concern among policy makers and industry alike, warns Luca Bucchini, PhD.
The Brazilian company Biorigin has announced plans to develop its position in the European beta-glucan market after winning EU novel foods approval; meanwhile the EU health claim scramble continues.
Barry Callebaut's R&D department talks to ConfectioneryNews after winning a blood flow health claim for cocoa flavanols in dark chocolate and cocoa beverages.
Controversial and widely despised EU health claim laws are benefitting its business and the wider food supplements market, according to leading Spanish manufacturer, Forté Pharma.
The EU energy market is set to grow by €1bn by 2017 and much of that could come from ‘natural energy’, a sub-sector that has been boosted by recent health claim approvals, says Euromonitor International analyst, Diana Cowland.
Swiss-Israeli flavours and ingredients house Frutarom wants a greater slice of the global functional foods and drinks market with new investment and initiatives to tap markets like the Americas and Asia and the “sensitive” European market.
The Dutch start-up Medical Brands is finding success with cranberry products that have won UTI and vaginal treatment claims via the EU medical devices directive.
UK food supplements lobby group, Consumers for Health Choice (CHC), has launched a new campaign to keep maximum permitted levels (MPL) for food supplements in UK hands.
Food industry trade body FoodDrinkEurope has said a decision to cut research and innovation spending by 11% under the EU’s seven year budget proposal is likely to harm the competitiveness of the European food industry.
UK Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt has raised the controversial topic of maximum permitted levels (MPLs) of nutrients in food supplements in the EU with new EC health commissioner, Tonio Borg, Westminster has been told.
“They are prepared to surrender higher potency supplements at the altar of harmonisation."
UK Liberal Democrat parliamentarian, Dr John Pugh, quipped to NutraIngredients that the letter he and other UK MPs wrote to the UK press today in defence of high-dose food supplements, was not about, “protecting strange Bulgarian recipes of doubtful providence...
An article in ‘Nature’ magazine welcoming tough EU health claim laws has highlighted the conundrum facing EU regulators if the Union is to adopt different claim-substantiation criteria for about 2000 ‘on-hold’ botanical claims.
December 14 brings the long awaited and widely disputed EU crack down on health claims. That means 222 general function claims are good to go, another 1500 or so prohibited. But what happens to B2B communications?
The health claim-making future of hundreds of botanical extracts is being debated at EU level after being put on hold almost two years ago by the European Commission.
Food supplements are ideally suited for online sales: stable, light, high-value, popular with consumers. It is therefore no surprise that online food supplement sales are on the rise with the promise of lower prices and home delivery.
Frustration at the inability of European Union lawmakers to decide on nutrient profiling rules made unusual bedfellows of health NGOs and Big Food representatives, who have agreed the EU would be better to borrow a model already in use than pursue its...
Gum giant Wrigley has been granted novel food approval in the EU for an extract to be used in chewing gum and mints that will allow it to introduce new products with perceived breath-freshening benefits.
The Italian food supplement market is showing no signs of a slowdown despite the country’s well-documented financial problems, with annual growth rates steady at 10% and fed by high quality products and broadening consumer interest.
The UK-based Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) is preparing legal action against a new EU law due to take effect on May 1 2011 which could ban thousands of traditional herbal medicines and threatens to drive consumers online to buy unregulated black market...
With antioxidants failing to impress European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) scientists and the term itself therefore likely to soon become an unauthorised health claim in the EU, antioxidant forms like polyphenols are filling the marketing void, a Coca-Cola...
Positive European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) health claims linking iodine, iron and children’s development have been adopted and written into the EU legislature.
The European food supplements industry is benefitting from a campaign emanating from Ireland that seeks to raise industry’s voice in the mainstream media – but the multiplicity of EU languages remains a key challenge.
The food industry has received ringing praise from the EU’s director general for health and consumers are it charts five years of progress towards helping make a healthier, more balanced diet and lifestyle attainable by consumers.
Belgian ingredients giant, the Beneo Group, says new European Union health rules favour ‘active’ health claims such as phytosterols, while discounting ‘passive’ claims such as those that replace ingredients with healthier versions to make products healthier.
The newly effective mutual recognition regulation has again been praised by experts in the nutritional food industry as a means to overcome the challenge of a lack of harmonisation for certain ingredients across Europe.
The European cholesterol-lowering market presents many opportunities for food supplements and functional foods despite threats such as statin drugs and a tough new health claims regime, says Dr Robert Harwood, principal consultant at UK-based CPL Business...
Imperfect as they may be, the European Union’s regulatory efforts in the food area have attracted the attention of regulators around the world, some of whom view what is being done in the bloc as a legislative template.
Populations around the Mediterranean are abandoning their traditional healthy diets, the FAO has warned, as incomes increase and consumers opt for more meat, saturated fats and time-saving processed foods.
Poland has established a government-backed group briefed with
developing criteria relating to the classification of a range of
nutrients under either food or medicine law.
A European-wide shortage in fish oil supplements has been predicted
by the European Federation of Health Product Manufacturers (EHPM)
because of new EU hygiene rules.
Chinese ingredients supplier Fenchem has received novel foods
notification for its Cholevel plant sterols in the EU, opening up
the way for the ingredient's direct use in foods.
The EC yesterday launched a communication on the EU Distance
Selling Directive aimed at preventing rogue traders exploiting
loopholes created by new technologies and eroding consumer
confidence in products commonly sold in this way,...
The traditional diet in many Eastern European countries relies
heavily on fatty foods like red meat and less emphasis is given to
vegetables as elsewhere. But as consumers become more aware of the
link between diet and health, companies...
Proposed changes to the EU's regulation on novel foods would boost
product innovation in the industry, and make cross-border trading
easier, the European Commission says in a consultative document.
Legislation to harmonise vitamin and mineral fortification levels
across EU member states looks set to be adopted within weeks,
following this week's favourable vote by the European Parliament.
If the EU keeps hiding its agriculture sector behind huge pay
cheques instead of devoting more time to food research funding, the
bloc's whimpering and wailing will only get worse.
A new centre-right government in Poland is unlikely to curb the
country's strong opposition to EU sugar reforms as Commission
representatives look for common ground to break the 'no' camp.
Whether it is a pork pie from Melton Mowbray or olive oil from
Nimes, every Tom, Denis and Haemon seems to believe their local
food deserves the EU's protection from big, bad corporations.
![Alban Maggiar on botanicals: “I understand [the EC] would not disagree with option 2,”](/var/wrbm_gb_food_pharma/storage/images/_aliases/news_teaser_medium/3/0/1/7/3437103-1-eng-GB/EU-supplements-sector-presses-on-for-EU-botanical-acceptance.jpg)
