New minimum nutrition standards for English school food, designed
to ensure healthier eating, has resulted in the banning of certain
products high in salt, fat and sugar.
Following plans in Europe to harmonise health claims in food
labelling, experts at Eversheds law firm claim any new rules will
have to overcome historical scepticism to be truly effective.
Poland's controversial ban on the use of 16 varieties of
genetically modified maize has been backed by the European
Commission, despite warnings the law broke EU rules.
The majority of food recalls around the world are caused by
preventable problems, with poor allergen control and failure to
follow international standards as the major culprits, according to
a UK consultancy.
The EU's food safety agency today said aspartame is safe for
consumption, contradicting a scientific study by the Ramazzini
Foundation that claimed the artificial sweetener caused cancer.
The Polish parliament's proposed ban on the sale and registration,
but apparently not planting, of biotech seeds, will likely violate
EU regulations, according to a USDA foreign agricultural service
GAIN report.
Self-regulation has become the mantra of food groups who argue that
laws are not always necessary - but can industry be trusted when it
has failed so spectacularly in the past?
The EU trade commissioner has today attacked the US as the 'biggest
single block' to the successful completion of the Doha round of
trade negotiations, casting doubts that a successful conclusion can
ever be achieved.
Representatives from around the world will meet next week in the
Hague, the Netherlands to hash out a common agreement on
international standards on food additives and contaminants.
Proposed guidelines to restrict food advertising directed at
children will herald a new era of tighter regulatory control in the
UK, according to food law experts at Eversheds.
Newly published salt reduction targets have been cautiously
welcomed by the UK food industry as being 'more realistic than the
2005 proposals', though health campaigners are furious.
The adoption of detailed documentation requirements for genetically
modified (GM) food in the international trade of agricultural
commodities has been met with caution by grain and cereal
importers.
Owen Warnock, partner and food law expert at law firm Eversheds,
believes that UK plans to simplify the regulation and legislation
of the food industry are to be welcomed.
The EU's food industry yesterday called on political leaders to get
behind a proposed economic growth programme for the bloc,
especially in relation research, small and medium-sized businesses,
energy policy and social reform.
The European Commission has rejected a notification by Cyprus that
required genetically modified foods to be displayed separately from
non-GM foods in supermarkets.
Italy has made country-of-origin labelling mandatory on some tomato
products, another indication of the country's increasing trend
towards making it harder for foreign food products to enter its
market.
The development of EU-wide legislation on the co-existence of
genetically modified crops with conventional and organic farming is
not currently justified, according to a new report from the
European Commission.
The European Commission has reopened debate on harmonising and
increasing legislation on food labelling across the bloc, a move
that could potentially lead to greater costs for businesses.
Trade negotiators from the EU, the US, Brazil, India, Japan and
Australia are meeting in London this week for talks intended to
move forward the stalling WTO Doha negotiations on agricultural
tariffs.
The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA)'s proposed Multiple Traffic
Light system is 'too simplistic, twenty years out of date, dreamt
up by administrators rather than nutritionists and likely to
confuse consumers', according...
Europes biotech industry has criticised Romania's proposed ban on
transgenic soybeans, claiming that the decision will negatively
impact both the European food industry and consumers.
Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel explains why the formal adoption
this week of the EU sugar reforms was vital, and why it doesn't
mean the end for Europe's sugar industry.
Revision of the EU Council regulation governing organic food would
allow GM contamination and obscure the local origins of organic
food, according to the Soil Associations Peter Melchett.
Regulators and industry representatives from across the EU
yesterday wrapped up a meeting in Rotterdam debating standardised
system for food labelling across the bloc.
Law firm Eversheds tells FoodNavigator why Europe's food
industry needs a voice in the ongoing debate over labelling, and
outlines some of the battlegrounds to come.
The WTO ruling backing the US, Canada and Argentina in their
efforts to open Europe up to genetically modified (GM) food has
been dismissed as 'irrelevant'.
The UK food industry has been slammed by consumer groups for its
rejection of an industry-wide colour-coded labelling scheme, just
as consultation on a voluntary front of pack labelling scheme ended
yesterday.
WTO director-general Pascal Lamy has urged countries to intensify
negotiations in order to conclude the current round of agricultural
trade talks - but will they listen?
The EU has attacked the US for 'seriously twisting the truth about
the value of the European Unions agricultural market access offer
in the Doha Round'.
The European Commission has asked the European Food Safety
Authority (EFSA) to provide food-based dietary guidelines intended
for the European population as a whole, it emerged last week.
The first agriculture and fisheries council meeting under the
Austrian presidency of the EU, held today in Brussels, will set the
agenda for food industry reform in 2006.