Health sells

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Health is a selling proposition. Health is also a question of nutrition – and these USPs can be communicated best by food packaging itself. However, is everything healthy that says it is? This is soon to be guaranteed throughout Europe by uniform permitted health claims contained in the Health-Claims regulation.

Food and beverage producers are anxious to label their products with health-related information such as “low-fat”, “sugar-free” and “high fibre”. These attributes are in line with the zeitgeist and they sell. Late 2006 the European Council and the European Parliament adopted a regulation containing uniform rules for such claims on foodstuffs. Labels and marketing may only refer to genuine health and nutritional benefits. The relevant claims must be listed in the positive list valid for all the EU which is to be published by early 2010. The regulation is valid in all EU member states and primarily serves to protect the consumer. A regulation is a piece of legislation that enters into force immediately and does not require transposition into national laws by MS legislators.

What is not explicitly permitted is prohibited

This confronts food and beverage manufacturers and the packaging industry with new challenges. If a claim already in use now will no longer be permitted from 2010, the product will have to be redesigned. The new legislation therefore requires all stakeholders to reorganise their operations fundamentally and to provide information with regard to implementation, approval, application and marketing. Only advertising claims for foodstuffs that contain nutrition or health related information fall within the scope of this regulation. They will have to be explicitly approved by the Health-Claims regulation and comply with the nutrient profiles still to be developed by the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA). Only what can be verified by recognised scientific findings will be accepted. Furthermore, the prohibition principle with reserved permit shall apply: what is not explicitly permitted is prohibited.

Low-fat or fat-free?

The Health Claims regulation distinguishes between two different types of health claims: claims regarding the nutritional benefit, on the one hand, and those regarding health, on the other. The applications submitted for health-related advertising claims must meet very high scientific standards. The claim “low-fat” for foodstuffs or any other claim that can be expected to be understood the same way by consumers is only admissible if a solid foodstuff contains less than 3g fat/100 g or a liquid food less than 1.5g fat/100 ml.
Fat-free is only admitted for products containing less than 0.5g fat/100g or 100ml. Health-related claims such as “supports the immune system” have been possible so far provided they were correct. In future, all health-related claims will be prohibited unless they are stated in the EFSA positive list. All in all, health claims will only be permitted if the foodstuffs feature a specific nutrient profile, i.e. if they they do not exceed a specific contents of the so-called Bad 6 (fat, saturated fatty acids, trans-fatty acids, sugar and salt/sodium). If one nutrient exceeds the profile threshold this deviation shall be indicated.
Using fruit jelly beans as an example, that have used “fat-free” as an advertising claim, this means: to continue to be considered “fat-free” in future these candies must not contain more than 0.5 g fat per 100 g. If the candy corresponds to the nutrient profile defined for its group it will be allowed to continue using the fat-free claim. If, however, the sugar content of this candy is too high, the manufacturer shall either forego the additional information “fat-free” or feature the note “contains plenty of sugar” in the same font size on the packaging.

Sceptical industry

At the International Fresenius Conference “Health and Nutrition Claims in Europe” late April this issue was disputed heatedly. Industry representatives voiced their dissatisfaction and scepticism regarding the state of the Health Claims regulation and demanded that the legal framework created more calculability, accelerated the decision-making process and ensured a level playing field. “If these preconditions are not ensured the economic risks will rise at the expense of the willingness to innovate,” said Henk Aalten, DSM Nutritional Products, Switzerland. He felt that companies complying with the rules should be protected against those who did not. “Laws only work if they are enforced. The uniform implementation and enforcement among the 27 members states will make or break the regulation”.
Anne Heughan, Unilever, London, explained that her company had supported the regulation in order to secure consumer confidence and ensure fair competition. The complex legal framework, she added, hindered the marketing of products with health claims: “We only have speculative answers to many legal questions. This makes planning for packaging and advertising very difficult as they require long lead times.”

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