“EFSA welcomes the opportunity of providing sound scientific advice to underpin the new Regulation on nutrition and health claims,” EFSA Executive Director Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle said at the conference today. “EFSA has the expertise needed to meet the challenging tasks laid down in the Regulation. We will undertake this new work in close co-operation with national food safety authorities and following extensive consultation of our stakeholders.”

EFSA will have an important scientific role to play in supporting the European Commission and Member States in implementing the new legislation. The Authority’s main role will be to provide the scientific basis for assessing whether health or nutrition claims are scientifically reliable.

EFSA’s tasks can be summarised as follows:

• Nutrition and health claims can only be used if a food fits a certain nutrient profile. EFSA will provide scientific advice in order to enable risk managers to establish such profiles.
• Guidance will be developed to help applicants prepare dossiers for the authorization of new health claims. EFSA will assist the European Commission by providing the scientific and technical elements of this guidance.
• Within three years of the Regulation entering into force, the European Commission is going to draw up a list of permitted health claims (except those referring to children’s development and health or reduction of disease risk). EFSA will be consulted on this list consisting of claims collected at national level by the EU Member States.
• EFSA will also provide scientific opinions on individual applications for health claims related to reducing disease risk and children’s development and health. EFSA will assess whether a given health claim is substantiated by the scientific evidence in the applications.

EFSA and its NDA Panel have already begun to prepare and organise its future work in anticipation of the new legislation. At its three-day conference from 8–10 November in Bologna EFSA is exchanging views and collecting input from national authorities, international organisations, stakeholders and other interested parties, in order to launch its activities.

The final day of the conference (10 November) will be web cast live including a wrap up by the Chair of the conference Dr Herman Koëter, Director of Science and Deputy Director of EFSA, and the Co-chair Prof. Albert Flynn, Professor at the University College of Cork and Chair of the EFSA NDA Panel.