FSA admits science ‘only one factor’ in its colours ban

The Food Standards Agency’s (FSA’s) call for an EU-wide ban on the six colours used in the University of Southampton study was based primarily on “consumer concerns” rather than a scientific assessment of risk, it has revealed.

Its calls or a ban has baffled many observers given that the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) last month concluded that the findings of the Southampton study “cannot be used as a basis for altering the acceptable daily intakes (ADIs) of the food colours [used in the study] or sodium benzoate”.

Dr Clair Baynton, who heads the FSA’s novel foods, additives and supplements division, told ‘’Food Manufacture’’: “The advice from EFSA was just one factor in our decision. Yes, the scientific evidence alone isn’t strong enough and doesn’t point to a definitive link, but consumers have concerns about these additives and we are making a sensible response.”

One leading food scientist who asked not to be named, said he was “flabbergasted” by the FSA’s stance. He added: “This has shocked a lot of people, not because they are on a crusade to keep using these colours - they are being phased out by a lot of companies anyway - but because it’s a point of principle. Since when did the FSA make decisions based on consumer perceptions? It is supposed to be an evidence-based organisation, and yet the evidence does not warrant the decision it has taken. I find what they have done deeply perplexing.”

Another senior industry source said the proposed ban set a “worrying precedent” and heightened the concerns of those who felt that the FSA was trying to be seen as a consumer champion instead of an impartial body basing its decisions on sound science.

The Food Additives and Ingredients Association predicted that calls for an EU-wide ban were “unlikely to succeed”, however. Given that EFSA was the official advisor on food safety to the European Commission and had just declared that there was no basis for altering ADIs of the colours in question, it was not clear on what basis regulators could now ban them, it said.

The FSA plans to gauge opinion in the other Member States on its proposed ban in the coming weeks, with the matter then likely to go to an expert committee comprising representatives from the Member States plus stakeholders from industry and consumer groups, said Bayton.

Changing the methodology of the study such that it were possible to isolate the effects of individual additives or the preservative sodium benzoate would have cost “considerably more” that the £750,000 that the FSA had already spent on the study, added her colleague Stephen Johnson.

In the meantime, the FSA has called for UK manufacturers to observe a voluntary phase-out of the colours in the UK by 2009, something that the Food and Drink Federation fears will put the UK at odds with the rest of Europe.