New Regulation No. 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims made on foods

Regulation (EC) No. 1924/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of20 December 2006 on nutrition and health claims made on foods was re-publishedin its corrected form on 18 January 2007 and applies from 1 July 2007. This isthe first piece of legislation to specifically deal with nutrition and healthclaims and aims to provide a higher level of consumer protection as well asharmonise legislation across the EU to facilitate intra-Community trade. Theregulation controls nutrition and health claims by means of positive lists ofauthorised claims that can be made on food together with the criteria a productmust meet to use them. The regulation's annex contains the list of permittednutrition claims and the regulation establishes processes for compiling the listof authorised health claims. It also requires the European Commission toestablish nutrient profiles as criteria that foods must meet to make claims.