Food Act 1984

4 Regulations as to composition of food etc.

(1) The Ministers may, so far as appears to them to be necessary or expedient in the interests of the public health, or otherwise for the protection of the public, or to be called for by any Community obligation, make regulations for any of the following purposes—

(a) for requiring, prohibiting or regulating the addition of any specified substance, or any substance of any specified class, to food intended for sale for human consumption or any class of such food, or the use of any such substance as an ingredient in the preparation of such food, and generally for regulating the composition of such food;

(b) for requiring, prohibiting or regulating the use of any process or treatment in the preparation of any food intended for sale for human consumption, or any class of such food;

(c) for prohibiting or regulating the sale, possession for sale, offer or exposure for sale, consignment, or delivery, of food which does not comply with any of the regulations, or in relation to which an offence against the regulations has been committed or would have been committed if any relevant act or omission had taken place in England and Wales, or in Northern Ireland, subject to subsection (5), or for prohibiting or regulating the importation of any such food as is mentioned above;

(d) for prohibiting or regulating the sale, possession for sale, or offer, exposure or advertisement for sale, of any specified substance, or of any substance of any specified class, with a view to its use in the preparation of food for human consumption, and the possession of any such substance for use in the preparation of food intended for sale for human consumption.

(2) In the exercise of their functions under this section the Ministers shall have regard to the desirability of restricting, so far as practicable, the use of substances of no nutritional value as foods or as ingredients of foods.

(3) Regulations made under this section may apply to cream, and to any food containing milk, but otherwise shall not apply to milk.

(4) Regulations so made may provide that, where any food is certified by a public analyst as being food to which the regulations apply so far as they are made under paragraph (c) of subsection (1), that food may be treated for the purposes of section 9, or in any corresponding Northern Ireland enactment, as being unfit for human consumption.

Those regulations may be—

(a) in relation to such cases as may be specified, and

(b) subject to such exceptions as may be allowed,

by or under the regulations, but nothing in any such regulations shall be taken as prejudicing the generality of the powers conferred by section 9, or in any corresponding Northern Ireland enactment.

(5) So far as this section relates to importation it applies to Northern Ireland.