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Food label claims

Claims are everywhere: "Rich in calcium and iron", "Helps strengthen the body's natural defences", "Reduced sugar", "Low-salt" - How are claims regulated and what role does ANSES play?

What is a claim?

Claims are messages found on certain food packages or in connection with a product (advertisement, web site), stating the health and/or nutritional benefits of foods or their ingredients.

From a regulatory point of view, a claim is considered to be:
- a nutritional claim if it refers to the amount of a nutrient contained in the food. It may say "rich in calcium" or "provides 30% of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C", for example;

- a health claim if it makes a connection between a nutrient or a food and health. It may claim that the product reduces a risk factor (ex: "Omega 3s reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease") or other health risks, but it may not include therapeutic information indicating that a nutrient can prevent or cure a disease (ex: "calcium prevents osteoporosis").

How are claims regulated?

Claims are uniformly regulated at European level (Regulation 1924/2006). Authorised nutritional claims are listed in an annex to the regulation. Since 2007, when this provision came into force, EFSA (the European Food Safety Authority) is in charge of assessing claims before they are marketed and the European Commission is responsible for establishing the register of authorised claims.

In order to compile this register, the European Commission has centralised all applications concerning generic claims (those connecting a nutrient with a bodily function) sent to them by Member States (more than 44,000) and made a selection (by deleting repetitions, etc.). A single list of just over 4600 claims is currently under assessment by EFSA.

What role does ANSES play?

Before 2007:
Claim assessment was conducted nationally by AFSSA (which became ANSES as of 1 July 2010) once the product was already on the market. To market their products, manufacturers did not first have to supply scientific proof to support the claims they made. However, they had to be able to provide authorities with a file enabling them to justify the validity of the claim used. If the validity of a claim was called into question, the Directorate General for Fair Trading, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) would ask AFSSA to evaluate the claim on a scientific level. Since its creation, the Agency has assessed 590 cases of this type. Only 20% of the claims submitted to AFSSA were found to be scientifically sound.

Since 2007:
Since the entry into force of regulation 1924/2006, the Agency is no longer systematically involved in the assessment of claims, but it participates in the evolution of regulations on the subject by providing scientific and technical support to the French government. Thus, within the context of the drafting of the EU register of authorised claims, the Agency assessed a certain number of claims submitted by French manufacturers to the DGCCRF, which in turn sent a consolidated French list to the European Commission.

In early 2007, AFSSA published guidelines specifying criteria considered relevant by the Agency for the scientific assessment of claims. This work was submitted to EFSA to be used as an aid in establishing EFSA's own claims assessment guidelines, which are consistent with those created by AFSSA.

The DGCCRF also occasionally asks ANSES to assess claims currently in use in France and for which EFSA has not yet completed an assessment.

July 2011