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CCFL48/ Three key texts forwarded to CAC47

02/11/2024

The 48th session of the Codex Committee on Food Labelling has concluded in Quebec City, Canada. In his closing remarks Chairperson Parthi Muthukumarasamy thanked delegates for “the great work for the last 4 or 5 days.

“We had an additional day of plenary at CCFL48,” he said, “thanks for the great work and thanks to everyone for staying an additional day in order for us to make progress on a number of texts, which we have done, through the collaboration and efforts of all of you.” He reminded delegates that CCFL49 will return to a regular Monday to Friday meeting, with just three items now going through the step process.

The Committee succeeded in finalizing three key pieces of work and progressed others. Allergen labelling has been the subject of detailed work in recent years and has culminated now in proposed revisions to the General Standard for the Labelling of Pre-Packaged Foods (CXS 1-1985): provisions relevant to allergen labelling, being forwarded to CAC47 for adoption. Proposed guidelines on the use of precautionary allergen labelling also made good progress and have been forwarded to CAC47 at Step 5.

Proposed guidelines on the provision of food information for pre-packaged foods to be offered via e-commerce were also concluded, as were proposed guidelines on the use of technology to provide food information in food labelling. Both of these proposed texts have also been forwarded to CAC47 for adoption.

The Committee discussed in depth the proposed amendments to the General Standard for the Labelling of Pre-Packaged Foods (CXS 1-1985): provisions relevant to joint presentation and multipack formats and agreed that further work is now needed on the definitions to be used within these amendments. The Colombia-led electronic working group will be re-established to continue this work in line with the Committee’s discussions.

Of the several proposals for new work, just one will be forwarded to CAC47. This new work will see the development of guidelines on the application of food labelling provisions in emergencies, headed by the United States of America. Other new work proposals, for the labelling of alcoholic beverages, for sustainability labelling claims, for a definition for “added sugar” in sugar labelling, and new proposals for revisions to the Guidelines for the use of nutrition and health claims (CXG 23-1997) to include “high-in” claims, and for a uniform definition for “small packs”, were all to be retained in the inventory of future work as the Committee did not agree at this stage that the proposals were ready to be forwarded to CAC. The Committee also agreed to return to the proposal to start work on labelling of trans fatty acids (TFAs) only once the Codex Committee on Fats and Oils has completed its work on TFAs.

Read more

CCFL48 webpage