JFM Sunile AS received notification from DG Sanco on November 16 that its novel foods application had been approved, meaning it is now able to sell its ColdSea-branded krill ingredients into the EU’s 27 member states.
Marketing director, Rune Fimreite, said the €500,000 company had begun marketing the ingredient to companies in the EU. Previously it has done business only in Norway and select Asian markets.
Significant development
“This is a significant development for our company,” Fimreite said, of the approval which piggy-backs the novel foods approval won by Neptune Technologies and Bioressources recently.
“We are a small company and now have access to significant new markets.”
The ten-year-old company has done most of its business in Canadian-sourced omega-3 seal oil as well as salmon derived omega-3 oils, but Fimreite noted that seal oil was being banned in the EU and the US and expected the market to shrink significantly in 2010.
It has only been involved in krill for about one year, sourcing from the Antarctic and counting fellow Norwegian firm, Aker Biomarine, as its raw materials supplier.
Fimreite said the company would be targeting both food and food supplements suppliers in the EU.
The DG Sanco approval stated: “…the krill oil to be placed on the market by the company JFM Sunile AS is substantially equivalent to the Krill oil authorised by [Neptune’s decision – 2009/752/EC] with respect to composition, nutritional value, metabolism, intended use and the level of undesirable substances contained therein.”
Aker encountered a problem at the Food Ingredients Europe trade show in Frankfurt last week when its stand was cleared by bailiffs, after Neptune won an injunction from a Frankfurt court for alleged novel foods transgressions.
Aker is appealing the decision.