Draft Amendments No. 4 to the Technical Regulation on Food Labelling (TR TS 022/2011), aim to clarify a number of existing provisions, to prevent misleading of consumers and to help consumers make an informed purchasing decision.
In particular, the amendments would expand and clarify the list of potential allergens that must be highlighted on a product label.
The amendments also harmonise the requirements of the TR TS 022/2011 with the Codex Alimentarius document CXG 2-1985, Rev.6-2017 (Guidelines on Nutrition Labelling).
The term “average daily requirement” (for nutrients) would be changed to “recommended daily consumption” (or “recommended daily intake”).
It would be explicitly allowed to group refined vegetable oils in a product composition under the name “vegetable oils" which must be followed by the list of names of specific oils included in the composition and the phrase "in various proportions." For example, vegetable oils (soybean, sunflower, rapeseed) unmodified and modified in various proportions.
The amendments would also revise the list of potential allergens by expanding the exemptions to this list. For example, the revised list would include cereals containing gluten (gluten), such as wheat (including spelled, Khorasan wheat (“kamut”), rye, barley, oats or their hybrid variants and their derivatives, except for:
a) wheat-based glucose syrup, including dextrose;
b) wheat-based maltodextrins;
c) glucose syrup based on barley;
d) cereals used to obtain distillates and ethyl alcohol from food raw materials.
The current version simply includes “gluten-containing cereals and their derivatives”, without any further explanations or exemptions.
The requirement to the indication of the nutritious value of a product would also be revised. It currently requires to indicate the energy value (calories), fats, carbohydrates and proteins as well as the content of vitamins and minerals. The revised version would add the requirement to also indicate saturated fatty acids and salt (the content of salt is to be determined by calculation).