Recipe for Disaster

From a regulatory perspective, 2007 will be a busy year for the EU food sector. European legislators are absorbed with additives, enzymes and flavourings legislation, and new proposals are expected from the European Commission (EC) on nutrition labelling, novel foods, and maximum levels for vitamins and minerals.

Another important development this year will be the publication of the White Paper on the promotion of healthy diets and physical activity, a document which is expected to include wide-ranging proposals.

However, it is probably the implementation of Regulation 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims that will continue to hold centre stage for a considerable number of people in the food industry, certainly for manufacturers of functional foods and fortified foods. The Regulation, which came into force on January 19, sets a number of obstacles in the paths of companies wanting to make health claims on their products.

Obtaining the relevant authorisation for the desired claim is only the first step in the process. A second, major hurdle is the pending nutrient profiling system which, when established, will be used to determine those foodstuffs which are prohibited - or further restricted - from making nutrition or health claims.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) will soon start drafting an opinion on the establishment of these profiles, but needless to say, the system ultimately adopted will be the result of political negotiations between Member States and the EC. Nevertheless, it will be fascinating to see how EFSA will try to justify scientifically what is a healthy foodstuff and what is not.

There is good reason to be intrigued - and concerned - about the final result of this exercise. Past examples of such profiling systems have tended to be flawed, leading to questionable results from a scientific point of view. The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA), for example, developed a profiling model to help broadcasting regulators determine which foods should not be advertised on TV to kids. According to this system, however, it would be healthier to eat French fries and chicken nuggets for breakfast than to have a bowl of cereal with milk!

On the whole, profiling models developed to date are based either on scoring systems or on threshold systems - both of which are questionable. Scoring systems calculate an abstract value for a given food, based on a certain number of nutrients and weighing of their relative value. Such systems are generally very complex and can lead to illogical results, such as those of the 'ideal' breakfast proposed by the FSA. Additionally, a score for an individual food does not make any sense when foods are incorporated into meals or consumed together. In addition, it does not take into account the pattern of use by the consumer, portion size or daily intake.

Threshold systems establish a limit value for high, medium and low depending on the amounts of nutrient(s) contained in the food. These systems, however, are usually based on arbitrarily determined cut-off values to decide what makes up a 'high', 'medium' or 'low' amount.

For example, if the threshold of 'high' fat cheese is 30%, one can hardly argue that there is a nutritionally significant difference between a cheese with 29% of fat and one with 31% of fat. Furthermore, a threshold system can only be applied to one nutrient at a time. A 'high' fat product may also be 'medium' in salt and 'low' in sugar, begging the question: how should it ultimately, and most appropriately, be classified?

Food manufacturers have every right to be concerned about the concept of nutrient profiles. The idea was originally introduced into the Regulation solely to determine which foods would and would not be able to bear claims. However, it wasn't long before European legislators realised that it could be a useful criteria to be taken into consideration when restricting the fortification of certain products, as is provided for in Regulation 1925/2006 on the addition of nutrients to foods.

Ultimately, when the harmonised nutrient profiling system is adopted, it will give Member States the perfect tool to discriminate between foods. Profiles could be used to ban certain products from vending machines in schools or in public places.

They could also be used to ban all advertising on certain foods, to impose a 'fat tax' on certain products, to insert a warning message such as 'Eating this product will make you obese' on the labels of certain products, or even to prohibit the sale of some foods to youngsters below 16 years of age. Yes, one day we just might have to show an ID to order a milkshake!

Miguel da Silva is adviser at European Advisory Services (EAS) in Brussels, which specialises in European and international regulation on food and nutritional products. Contact him at +32 2 218 1470