Health and food safety

← Health and food safety

Food information to consumers

Summary
Evaluation
Commission Proposal
Legal Act
Implementation

Overall state of play:

Commission proposal – on-going, technical work is ongoing and political decisions are pending on the final approaches to be taken on this initiative.
Commission actions concerning the implementation of the Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on Food Information to Consumers (FIC) – Commission notices adopted in 2017, 2018 and 2020; Food Labelling Information System available on Commission’s website (available since December 2020)

State of play, main conclusions, outlook

As announced in the Farm to Fork Strategy in May 2020 the Commission started work to revise the Food Information to Consumers (FIC) Regulation with a view to ensure better labelling information to help consumers make healthier and more sustainable food choices and tackle food waste, by proposing to:

• introduce harmonised mandatory front-of-pack nutrition labelling and set nutrient profiling criteria to restrict claims made on foods;

• extend mandatory origin or provenance information for certain products;

• revise the rules on date marking (‘use by’ and ‘best before’ dates).

In addition, the proposed revision of the FIC Regulation will follow up on the Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan considering to:

• introduce mandatory indications of the list of ingredients and the nutrition declaration for all alcoholic beverages.

The Commission has also continued assisting in the implementation and application of rules of the FIC Regulation through several actions: guidance document, questions and answers on the application of the Regulation, specific databases.

REFIT Platform

In its opinion XI.13.a on "vegan food", the REFIT Platform recommended the European Commission to fulfil its obligation to adopt an implementing act on the criteria for voluntary food information related to the suitability of a food for vegetarians or vegans to avoid diverging national developments and a distortion of the EU market.

The Commission is focusing its efforts on the implementation of the actions announced in the Farm to Fork Strategy.

State of Play:

Commission actions completed in 2017, 2018 and 2020 (notices), 2018 (implementing act), 2020 (report and database).

Implementation reported by Member States

National measures on the provision of information on allergen/intolerance with regard to non-prepacked foods have been adopted in 20 Member States.

Commission assistance to implementation and application of food labelling rules

• Updated questions and answers document on the application of the Regulation in the form of a Commission notice adopted on 31 May 2018.

• Guidance document by Commission relating to the provisions on allergens: Notice on the provision of information on substances or products causing allergies or intolerances adopted by the Commission on 13 July 2017. Its purpose is to assist consumers, businesses and national authorities in understanding the new requirements of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 related to the indication of the presence of certain substances or products causing allergies or intolerances.

• Guidance document by Commission relating to the quantitative ingredients declaration: Notice on the application of the principle of quantitative ingredients declaration (QUID) adopted by the Commission on 20 November 2017. This document aligns the 1998 guidelines to Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on the provision of food information to consumers, updating the relevant legal references. It provides guidelines for businesses and national authorities on the application of the principle of quantitative ingredients declaration in the context of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011.

• Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/775, adopted on 28 May 2018, clarifies how the information on the origin of the primary ingredient should be displayed on labels, if required according to Article 26(3) of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011. The new rules are applicable since 1 April 2020.

• The Commission Notice as regards the origin indication of the primary ingredient, adopted on 30 January 2020, which aims at assisting all players in the food chain as well as the competent national authorities to better understand and correctly apply the provisions of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 related to the origin indication of the primary ingredient.

• The Report to the European Parliament and the Council regarding the use of additional forms of expression and presentation of the nutrition declaration (‘front-of-pack nutrition labelling’), adopted on 20 May 2020.

• Database by Commission on EU requirements on food labelling. The Food Labelling Information System is an easy-to-use public interface allowing accurate and complete data for the EU labelling requirements of certain food products. It is available online since December 2020.