FIR webinar
Steve Spice
Steve Spice, Campden BRI’s head of regulatory affairs, told the webinar there was uncertainty among businesses about how to comply with the new regulation – particularly for small and medium-sized businesses. He also warned of the “colossal costs” of complying with the new rules.
Spice chose the following questions:
“There will be pressure from the EU to use the same terminology in the coming years, post 2015 implementation, for meat preparations and meat products. What is the industry response if it were to be mandatory on all products containing animal protein and not just meat cuts and steaks, for instance canned and ambient further processed products?”Ian Smith, head of fresh and technical at Asda
Spice: “The main transition date for FIC is December 13 2014. With the exception of date of freezing for meat preparations the FIC deals with meat products and meat preparations in a very similar fashion. Towards the end of 2013 there was an implementing regulation published that set out origin labelling requirements for fresh, chilled or frozen meat of swine, sheep, goat or poultry origin with a transition date set for April 1 2015.
“We were also expecting two further implementing regulations at around the same time on meat as an ingredient and primary ingredients where the origin differs from a voluntary declaration of origin. I imagine it is these that you are referring to. We’ve had sight of working documents but the final versions might be a distance off still, particularly given that there are EU Parliament elections coming up soon.
“The options set out are very broad indeed making it difficult to judge the most likely outcome. Certainly the three basic options for meat as an ingredient range from maintaining the status quo through to addressing the origin as the place of last substantial transformation and the places of provenance of the raw materials. All quite different and clearly the latter provides the most information to a consumer but also presents the biggest challenge, and cost, to the brand owner.”
“How early can changes be made on the back of pack? I was under the impression that we cannot change labelling until the deadline date? I have seen retailers and larger companies’ products with the changes already imposed?” April Graham, retail technical manager, Tate & Lyle Sugars
Spice: “It is entirely permissible to introduce FIC-compliant packaging any time before the deadline date, which is why you are starting to see it appear on supermarket shelves. At the beginning of last year the EC responded to effectively the same question you have asked. It replied that food business operators may place on the market products labelled in accordance with FIC so long as they don’t conflict with the requirements of existing food labelling law. The main area this affects is the removal of the durability date from the field of vision requirement in FIC. So, as long as you take this into consideration when laying out labels it is fine to label in accordance with FIC before December’s deadline.”
“Are we required to label cereals containing gluten, even when the gluten in finished product is less than 20 parts per million.” Sandeepa Nekkanti, specifications technologist at Mizkan Europe
Spice: “Annex II of the FIC regulations lists out the substances or products causing allergies or intolerances that need to be indicated on products that contain them. This list also identifies any exceptions that apply. For cereals containing gluten the following exceptions are listed:
- Wheat based glucose syrups including dextrose
- Wheat based maltodextrins
- Glucose syrups based on barley
- Cereals used for making alcoholic distillates including ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin.
“This list does not make any exception according to the level of gluten, which is why products containing barley malt vinegar will be highlighting the ‘barley’ element even though the product may well be legitimately marketed as being ‘gluten free’.”