Corrado Finardi, Lecturer in
Food Sciences, University of Parma
After years
of debate and applying checks and balances, the final Novel Food (NF) draft
agreed upon by the three EU
institutions (Parliament and Council in
primis) seems to be here to stay.
However, upon closer examination the draft appears to have bypassed or at least
failed to resolve two key and often related
issues, which go beyond simply the question of definitions: the inclusion of
feed and of insects as food-feed under the Novel Food regulation.
By the time
the Regulation was finally published in December 2015 [Reg. (UE) 2015/2283[2]]
various degrees of compromise were reached over different issues. These
included, for example, animal cloning (which
will require a separate regulation); the definition of nanotechnology, and the
need for prior risk assessment (RA), accepting in the latter case that
consumption patterns in other parts of the world (“history of safe use”)
sometimes warrant a simplified risk
evaluation.
[1] The authors wish to thank Luis González Vaqué (Fundación
“Triptolemos”) for his comments on the first version of this article. We also
found his study “¿Qué hay de “nuevo” en el Reglamento (UE) 2015/2283
relativo a los nuevos alimentos?” very useful (shortly to be published in the Revista de Derecho agrario y alimentario).
[2] REGULATION (EU) 2015/2283 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE
COUNCIL of 25 November 2015 on novel foods, amending Regulation (EU) No
1169/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council and repealing
Regulation (EC) No 258/97 of the European Parliament and of the Council and
Commission Regulation (EC) No 1852/2001.