EURACTIV says the EU food safety agency EFSA is to provide scientific advice to support the development of a future EU-wide system for front-of-pack nutrition labelling of foodstuffs, including setting conditions for nutrition and health claims on foods.
This includes the setting of nutrient profiles to restrict the promotion of food high in, for example, salt, sugars and/or fat.
The opinion, which was requested by the European Commission, will identify the key nutrients of public health importance for European populations, including non-nutrient components of food such as energy and dietary fibre, as well as food groups which have important roles in the diets of European populations.
EFSA will also offer its view on selecting the criteria to guide the choice of nutrients and other non-nutrient components of food for nutrient profiling.
In order to do so, experts will assess recent scientific information, including published reviews on dietary recommendations for healthy diets based on evidence from studies on humans and EFSA’s own work on dietary reference values and nutrient profiles.
