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EC Nutrition Labelling Rules Directive (90/496/EEC) was adopted at a meeting of the Agricultural Council on 24 September 1990 and published in the Official Journal on 6 October of that year.
The Directive requires Member States to permit trade in complying products by 1 April 1992 and to prohibit trade in products which do not comply with the Directive with effect from 1 October 1993.
The British Government already allows trade in complying products and it has issued draft regulations for public consultation which will introduce controls over the giving of nutrition information in food labelling and advertising which are necessary to implement 90/496/EEC. These regulations will be made under the provisions of the Food Safety Act 1990. The European Commission has been notified in accordance with this Directive.
The Food Labelling (Amendment) Regulations 1992, as they are likely to be called, will come into effect on, or before, 1 October 1993, thus complying with the Directive in its entirety.
There is just one last point to make by way of introduction and that is to deal with the question of enforcement in relation to products which currently comply with the Directive, and which therefore are allowed to circulate freely throughout the Community, i.e. with effect from 1 April 1992.
Compliance with any legislation is always a matter of interpretation but what we try to do in the UK is to operate what we call a "home authority" scheme whereby any person or company wishing to check that a particular product and product label complies with the law contacts their local enforcement officer (food control official/trading standards officer/environmental health officer/food inspector) for advice.
If that officer is reasonably satisfied that the product complies with the law--in this case a new directive and the Food Safety Act and the appropriate UK regulations --then, and most importantly, subject to testing and/or analysis and/or examination of recipes and/or other documentary or other evidence, the food control official will give approval to that product being marketed within the area of his/her jurisdiction.
PRACTICAL ENFORCEMENT IN THE UK
Trading standards officers/food control officials in the shire counties of England and Wales are responsible for the enforcement of some 130 regulations and orders in so far as they affect food composition,...