Shape up or shut up, health commissioner tells his critics

By Elaine Watson

- Last updated on GMT

Related tags Nutrient profiling Nutrition European union European food safety authority

Shape up or shut up, health commissioner tells his critics
Kyprianou denies rules demonise foods or strangle innovation

Manufacturers should stop whingeing that proposals from Brussels demonise foods through nutrient profiling and concentrate instead on making healthier products, according to Europe's health and consumer protection commissioner, Markos Kyprianou.

Hitting back at critics of the European Commission's controversial nutrition and health claims proposals, Kyprianou said that preventing manufacturers from making positive claims about ingredients used in products that had an unhealthy nutrient profile was simply injecting "balance" into the functional foods debate.

If nutrient profiling prevented manufacturers from talking about the stimulating effects of guarana in their chocolate bars, it was no bad thing, said Kyprianou, dismissing claims that it would strangle innovation and unfairly class foods as "good" or "bad"

He said: "Claims are voluntary. Nutrient profiles would only come into play when a voluntary claim is being made. This would simply bring some balance to claims used as promotional tools."

The equally controversial proposal to introduce a prior approvals process, whereby health claims could only be made following European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) approval, was sensible, he added.

A European Parliament suggestion that claims should simply be notified, leaving EFSA to challenge them "would not achieve any of the objectives of this regulation", he insisted. "Misleading claims could be on the market for months before they could be banned."

Hopes of a legal challenge to the proposals were dashed after the European Court of Justice dismissed a case against the Food Supplements Directive, which is also based on prior approval.

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