The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published its opinion on the setting of nutrient profiles for foods that bear nutrition and health claims, under the new regulation, on February 28. The idea behind nutrient profiling is to determine which foods should be barred from bearing claims, because they also contain high fat, sugar and salt levels.
Miguel da Silva, advisor at Brussels-based consultancy EAS, said EFSA's opinion falls short of expectations, since it neither proposes a specific system nor makes precise recommendations.
"It simply provides comments on the positive and negative aspects of a number of different food categorisation systems already existing in Europe and globally."
He said that food companies need to watch developments closely. The European Commission is expected to consult with member states this year, but no time frame has been laid out.
The system does, however, need to be established by 2009, in accordance with the text of the nutrition and health claims regulation.
In the meantime, while they would be well advised to look at their product portfolios critically to identify any potential challenges, such an exercise would be based on speculation.
"No-one can really predict today what the Commission will propose," said da Silva.
The indication is, then, that food manufacturers could be left with just a little time to bring to the table any products they want to make claims for, if their speculation turns out to be off the mark.
This could result in a rush to reformulate and redesign packaging and, possibly, removal of products from the market.
The opinion did, however, open the door to food groups that could be exempt from a nutrient profiling system if they play an important role in the diet. They may include dairy products, meat, fish, fruits and vegetables.
In a broad sense, the opinion said that saturated fats and sodium should be treated negatively, and unsaturated fatty acids and, to a certain extent, dietary fibre, should be treated as positive.
Da Silva identified a number of fundamental questions that remain unanswered, however.
These include: whether profiles will be set per category, or across all foods; which nutrients need to be considered; and whether the scheme will involve threshold levels or scoring.
