By Luca Bucchini, Hylobates Consulting managing director
The EU is old enough and ugly enough to get itself out of its botanical rut, so what's the hold up? Dr Luca Bucchini, managing director of Hylobates Consulting, asks.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged €689m to help tackle malnutrition as the European Commission announced €23.5m for a new nutrition initiative and €3.5bn by 2020.
Five caffeine health claims approved by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) but not yet EU-approved as industry, consumer and government stakeholders debate concerns, are in use anyway.
The Netherlands is looking at whether legislation on vitamin A should be changed after a report calculated how much could be ingested from supplements.
European adults should consume 750 mg a day; children between 450 and 1150 mg a day, and infants 280 mg per day according to a new draft opinion from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) has urged the European commissioner for health and food safety to practice caution when making ‘adjustments’ to health claim and botanical rules.
The Norwegian Food Safety Authority (NFSA) has asked its scientific committee to assess the safety of 'other substances' found on the Norwegian market - something it says is "largely unregulated" at EU level.
With the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) caffeine safety opinion finally published yesterday, the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) has called now for the ‘obvious conclusions’ to be drawn.
The long running process to develop a new centralised legislative procedure for novel food approvals has hit the rocks again – meaning major delays and backlogs are now on the cards, warn industry insiders.
Scotland-based supplement and infused water distributor Water for Health (WFH) has been censored by the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for making non-authorised immunity and other claims for chlorella and other infusions in the European Union.
Members of European Parliament (MEPs) have put forward what they describe to be a ‘final offer’ on proposed novel food regulations – warning that they will not compromise any further.
The EU’s central science agency is calling for input on a just-published draft opinion that recommends daily intakes from 80 mg/day for babies to 350 mg/day for adult men.
EFSA opinion wrap: Pomegranate, carob, coffee rejected. Vitamin D approved
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has rejected probiotic dossiers from Canadian firm Lallemand Health Solutions (immunity) and Italian player Synbiotec (defecation) in a batch of opinions published today.
An online UK juice, smoothie and healthy food merchant has fallen foul of the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over blood cleansing and other claims for some of its juices.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) needs a role change but that won’t come with its transparency initiative but legalisation changes, says industry.
Southeast Asia is heading for massive economic change with its ten-nation ASEAN single market and this could have ripple effects for the EU too, says expert.
Black market crack downs, neighbourhood kudos and moving goal posts - Croatia's supplement industry has seen big changes since it became a member of the European Union in July 2013.
The UK's Food Standards Agency (FSA) has urged Twitter users to help it spread the word on the dangers of toxic fat burner DNP after a young woman died last month.
The EU’s central science agency has clarified health claim procedures after a furore over a CLA weight management submission BASF and Stepan Lipid Nutrition unsuccessfully attempted to withdraw from the system earlier this year.
Science agency affirms safety at 400 mg daily for adults
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has adopted its opinion on the safe consumption of caffeine with little change to its controversial draft after a heated debate period.
Dispatches from the International Yakult Symposium
Probiotics are yet to win a health claim in the European Union but they continue to receive backing by various bodies for gastrointestinal issues like diarrhoea.
The Alliance for Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) harmonised health supplement framework will be up and running by the end of the year after over ten years in the making.
Critics of the dietary supplement industry who were invited to speak at the scientific conference held this week at the University of Mississippi were pulling no punches. Olivier Rabin, PhD, of the World Anti Doping Agency, renewed a call for more stringent...
Global and EU regulation aims to stop companies using indigenous bio knowledge and material to make profits without filtering any of the benefits back.
With different bodies referring illegal health claims to one another for policing, NutraIngredients asks: Whose responsibility is it to ensure health claim compliance – and does it matter as long as illegal claims are removed?
The European Specialist Sports Nutrition Alliance (ESSNA) has kicked out Protein World just one week after the UK retailer was busted by the UK’s Advertising Standards Agency (ASA).
Belgium has notified the European Commission of a draft decree replacing its current lists of botanicals with those approved under BELFRIT – bringing the number of plants from about 645 to 1019 and adding many new maximum levels and mandatory warnings.
The UK advertising watchdog has muzzled meal replacement, muscle building, metabolism, L-carnitine, CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) and other claims being made by a UK based online manufacturer-retailer as it continues its claims crack down based on EU...
The New Zealand Commerce Commission has granted infant formula industry association, the Infant Nutrition Council (INC), the power to restrict the marketing practices of its members.
Single ingredient trade groups are becoming an increasingly common feature of the dietary supplement industry. Whether they burnish the overall image of the sector or serve to further Balkanize the industry’s message is a matter of debate.
Weight-loss ingredient raspberry ketone is an unauthorised novel food for all but one very particular extract – something one manufacturer using the legal extract says could cause confusion.
Thousands of European food and drink firms are missing out on the £27bn global functional food market because of restrictive health claims wording, leading nutritionists have complained.
The German nutrition company Dextro Energy is to take the European Commission to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg over five banned glucose health claims.
The UK medicines agency has joined West Yorkshire police in investigating an arsenic poisoning case that has been linked to an impotence herbal supplement sold via the UK arm of an Indian firm.
After a months-long interregnum, George Paraskevakos, the new executive director of the International Probiotics Association, formally takes up the reins pledging that the organization will become more agile and vocal in defending and promoting the ingredients.
The Bangalore Report, the latest FAO assessment of the DIAAS protein quality measurement method, is a “very positive step” towards replacing PDCAAS, says Volac.
The inclusion of new voluntary best practices in the organisation’s revised trader standard is an “interesting” element, said a representative at Voice Network.
Samples of infant formula feared to have been tampered with have tested negative for pest control poison, sodium monofluoroacetate (1080), says New Zealand Police.
The drop in corporation tax, promise of increased investment funding and support for British farmers in the 2015 UK budget were largely supported by British food and drink manufacturers.
