2019-03 EU SPECIALTY FOOD INGREDIENTS AT 51st CODEX COMMITTEE ON FOOD ADDITIVES IN JINAN (CHINA)

An EU Specialty Food Ingredients' delegation attended the 51st Session of the Codex Committee on Food Additives (CCFA) which took place between 25th and 29th March in Jinan, China.

One of the main objectives of this Codex Committee is to finalise the General Standard for Food Additives (GSFA), which “should be the single authoritive reference point for food additives” in the Codex Alimentarius. In this context, EU Specialty Food Ingredients successfully managed to have additives included into the GSFA at the early steps of the adoption procedure. Moreover and in anticipation for a future entry into the GSFA, our federation was also glad to see its request for assessment of a new additive included into the Codex risk assessment body (JECFA)’s priority list.

Apart from these topics, the busy agenda of the Committee also included items closely followed by our federation, such as the discussion on the possible development of definitions for the terms “unprocessed” or “untreated”. Due to lack of consensus, the Committee agreed to discontinue this work. EU Specialty Food Ingredients also noted with great interest the Committee’s significant progress on the sensitive GSFA footnote 161, mainly related to sweeteners and colours provisions.

EU Specialty Food Ingredients’ achievements result from a long-standing and active involvement in Committee meetings as well as its electronic working groups. Over the years and with experience, our federation has expanded its knowledge of the Codex procedures, which is condensed in our How to become a Codex hero brochure, and our members know that EU Specialty Food Ingredients is the right partner to be successful at Codex.