The Nutrition and Health Claims Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2007

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations make provision for the execution and enforcement of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council on nutrition and health claims made on foods, as corrected by a Corrigendum (OJ No. L12, 18.1.2007, p3), “the EC Regulation”.

The Regulations —

(a) designate the competent authorities for the purposes of certain Articles of the EC Regulation (regulation 3);

(b) specify the enforcement authorities (regulation 4);

(c) provide that, subject to certain derogations and transitional measures specified in the EC Regulation where relevant, it is an offence —

(i) to make nutrition or health claims that do not in general comply with the requirements of the EC Regulation and in particular that are misleading or make certain specifically prohibited types of claim;

(ii) to make claims on alcoholic drinks other than to the very limited extent permitted by the EC Regulation;

(iii) to make a claim which cannot be scientifically justified;

(iv) to fail to provide the prescribed nutrition information when making a health claim;

(v) to make a nutrition claim which is not one of the ones listed in the Annex to the EC Regulation;

(vi) to make a comparative nutrition claim that does not comply with the requirements of the EC Regulation;

(vii) to make a health claim that is not authorised under the procedures provided for in the EC Regulation and is not accompanied by certain specified information in the labelling or other presentation;

(viii) to make a health claim of a type specifically prohibited by the EC Regulation; or

(ix) in the case of health claims relating to the reduction of disease risk, to fail to accompany the claim with the statement prescribed in the EC Regulation (regulation 5).

The Regulations also —

(a) apply certain provisions of the Food Safety (Northern Ireland) Order 1991 for the purposes of these Regulations (regulation 6);

(b) provide that, subject to certain limitations, it is an offence to obstruct, fail to give information to or intentionally mislead anyone executing and enforcing these Regulations (regulation 7); and

(c) make an amendment to the Food Labelling Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996 relating to the areas where there is some overlap between those Regulations and the EC Regulation (regulation 8).