In the midst of the ‘post-Easter chocolate digestion period’, which I suspect I am sharing with much of the UK population, an interesting news item caught my eye …
In Easters to come, could we be buying chocolate made from camel’s milk? It is reported that an Austrian manufacturer is exporting to the Middle East where camel milk is in high demand as a food ingredient, as well as a whole food in itself, due to its high nutrition value.
However, despite plans to increase yields of the milk through better feed quality, there could be a regulatory hurdle or two to overcome before entry to the European market. Think of the traceability challenge - the milk is largely produced by nomadic farmers (from the Sahara to Mongolia!), so tracing milk back to herds could prove something of a headache to say the least, and then there is the old fall back of the Novel Food Regulation (NFR). Would camel milk be considered a novel food? Perhaps. If it has no history of consumption in Europe, there is a significant chance that it might.
On the other hand, the NFR is coming under increasing global criticism for the trade barriers that it places on the export of local produce from non-European Union (EU) countries.
Such has been the level of lobbying that there is expected to be a draft revision of the NFR, which considers the import of foods that have been consumed to a significant level outside the EU. A draft text is not yet available, but already there are reports of many countries, particularly from Latin America, expressing concern that the draft should properly address this specific problem.
The degree to which the European Commission will allow imports of exotic foods from outside the EU will still clearly be driven by safety, but perhaps a less onerous approval process could be introduced. Such a change would certainly pave the way for an increasingly diverse choice of natural, nutritious ingredients.
''Jean Feord is business manager for legislation, Leatherhead Food International''http://www.leatherheadfood.com