• General comments

Euro Coop welcomes the draft proposal for a Regulation on nutrition, functional and health claims. At the moment, valuable labelling information can often be difficult to find among the many claims on food labels. Claims must be strictly-controlled to protect consumers from misleading labels. It is also essential to ensure that claims would not lead consumers to make unbalanced dietary choices.

We particularly welcome the inclusion of health claims and disease-reduction claims, which were not dealt with in last year's discussion paper on claims. We believe this sits well with the intention of the proposal to avoid "complicated specialised claims" (pgh. 19 of the Explanatory Memorandum) as they will provide consumers with clear and direct statements of benefit.

We welcome the choice of the legal instrument - a Regulation - which will be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States. This should ensure "a high common level of consumer protection" across the Union - a key objective of the new European Commission Consumer Policy Strategy .

We welcome the establishment of a Register and acknowledge the important role of the new European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

There are, however, some areas where we have concerns. These mainly relate to specific provisions of the draft Regulation, as explained below.

• Specific comments

Definition of nutrients (article 2.2 of the draft proposal)

As mentioned in our comments last year, we welcome the inclusion of other substances with a nutritional or physiological aspect. Claims are already being made about the presence of substances that are not included in the current definition of nutrients. We therefore believe that the definition must be extended to ensure they are properly regulated.

Our concern is that the proposed draft Regulation contains no criteria for physiological claims. The Annex is silent with regard to the regulation of substances with physiological effects. Euro Coop would therefore call for specific criteria for such substances and for them to be mentioned separately in the Annex.

Already in some Member States, consumers are seeing claims on foods for substances with dubious physiological effects, e.g. guarana, ginko, biloba and ginseng at levels as low as 0.3%, which are unlikely to have any effect from the quantities consumed, e.g., 125 ml portions. However, if they were to be consumed at levels giving rise to physiological effects, they ought also to carry health risks for certain groups, e.g., pregnant women. Yet there is no requirement to detail such potential adverse effects, although such effects are particularly likely to be associated with substances exhibiting physiological effects.

Definition of claims (article 2.3 of the draft proposal)

We should like to stress that it is extremely important to have clear definitions of the various types of claims. Indeed, different legal requirements apply to the various claims: a positive list of authorised claims applies to "nutrition claims" (Chapter II), Chapter III includes a system of arbitrage for "functional claims", Chapter IV foresees a strict authorisation procedure via the EFSA for "health claims".

Euro Coop is very concerned by the proposal classification of "functional claims" and "enhanced functional claims". We cannot envisage what would qualify as an "enhanced functional claim" and, what, in reality, distinguishes it from a "functional claim". The draft Regulation itself does not give convincing examples to illustrate the distinction and to justify the need for different authorisation procedures between the two types of claims: for example, the Explanatory Memorandum states that "Calcium aids in the development of strong bones and teeth" is a functional claim, whereas the statement "Calcium may help to improve bone density" is considered an enhanced functional claim.

We believe that it is not in practice possible to distinguish between the proposed sub-categories of "health-related claims" and that it is preferable to include "functional claims" under the definition of "health claims". We support the idea of including a positive list of generic claims based on generally-accepted data.

Prohibited claims (article 6 of the draft proposal)

We welcome the prohibition of any nutrition, functional or health claim making reference to psychological and behavioural functions and other claims that make reference to general, non-specific benefits of the nutrient or food for overall good health, well-being and normal functions of the body shall be prohibited. We also welcome the prohibition of the term "diet" in a name of a food (Article 9).

We agree that beverages containing more than 1.2% by volume of alcohol shall not bear any nutrition, functional or health claims. Young people and, indeed, the general population, should not be encouraged to consume alcoholic beverages.

Transparency and availability of generally accepted scientific data substantiating the claims (article 5 of the draft proposal)

While Euro Coop agrees that claims must be substantiated (see our requests under "general requirements" in last year's position paper ) as stated in Article 5 of the Draft Proposal, we would stress that consumer co-operatives should have access to generally-accepted scientific data substantiating the claims.

Functional claims (article 11 of the draft proposal)

We note the Community procedure for addressing false or misleading functional claims; however, we do not believe it goes far enough: it is already too late if such claims are already on the market. It could take some time to remove such claims, during which consumers will continue to be exposed to false or misleading information. As we have said previously and above, we believe "functional claims" should require some form of prior approval either as generic or novel functional claims.

Short, strictly-imposed time-frames should be set-down for the Member States to inform other Member States and the Commission about decisions to temporarily suspend the use of a claim (article 11, pgh. 1).

Application for approval (article 13 of the draft proposal)

Euro Coop strongly believes that there should be "a common high level of protection " (sic) for all European consumers, therefore we support a centralised approval system. However, we want to underline that health concerns and national diets vary across Europe and what might be a sensible health message for one Member State or Region within the Community may not be for another. We therefore feel that there should be scope for national authorities to be consulted on the wording of claims.

As regards the required particulars and documentation, we do not believe clause 2(e) is necessary; i.e., a wording in all Community languages.

Transitional period

We believe there is a need to provide transitional arrangements to allow for the continued use of claims that have been approved by credible and rigorous national organisations and that there is a role for the European Food Safety Authority in setting up these arrangements.

ANNEX

Euro Coop believes it is more important to establish common criteria across the Community which can be enforced than to argue over the precise values. However, we have some concerns, as described below, with some of the values proposed.

X-Free Claims

As stated in our previous position paper last year, these should only apply when products genuinely contain none of the declared components. However, we are of the view that consumers will feel misled if the term "x-free", which implies a product contains none of the named component, is used when in reality a small percentage is legally permissible for technical reasons. This applies to the proposed criteria for "fat-free", "saturates-free" and "sugar(s) free".

Euro Coop welcomes the ban on X% fat-free claims.

Low Fat/Low Saturate

Euro Coop would urge the Commission to use a single value for this claim, irrespective of whether the food is solid or liquid.

Low Cholesterol

We have concerns about low-cholesterol claims as consumers are generally confused between cholesterol in food and blood cholesterol. They may interpret such terms as giving the green light for consumption of such products. We recognise that it is linked to a low-saturates claim and welcome this.

Lite

While Euro Coop would welcome such a claim, the claim should nonetheless indicate what has been reduced (e.g., sugar(s), salt, etc.)

Fibre

There should be an agreed method of analysis to support the fibre criteria. Most European countries use the AOAC methods. We believe this should be specified.

Sodium/Salt

We believe that it is more logical to regulate sodium/salt claims in this draft Regulation than in the PARNUTS legislation as it is more widely applicable than PARNUTS. A labeller of a regular food is likely to overlook controls in PARNUTS which s/he would consider only applied to a food aimed at a sodium/salt reduced diet.