A key European Parliament committee has rejected calls to scrap nutrient profiles on food labels.
The nutrient profiles form part of the 2006 nutrition and health claims regulation but have yet to be formally drawn up by the European Commission.
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In March, the parliament’s committee on environment, public health and food safety, voted in favour of removing the profiles from law.
However, yesterday (16 June), the parliament’s legal affairs committee voted yesterday (16 June) not to adopt amendments to the nutrition and health claims regulations.
Labour MEP Glenis Willmott, who has been actively involved in the issue, told just-food the committee had "sensibly rejected" an attempt to "undermine rules on health claims and question the relevance of nutrient profiles, even in the face of heavy industry lobbying".
She said: "Nutrient profiles are needed to make sure that foods that are high in sugar, far or salt and essentially unhealthy cannot carry a health claim. We now need to put pressure on the [European] Commission to finally set these nutrient profiles so that consumers are protected from misleading marketing."
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By GlobalDataThe decision came on the same day as the European Court of Justice (ECJ) decided to reject an effort from two food industry organisations to have the permitted health claims list regulation annulled.
The UK Health Food Manufacturers’ Association and Natuur- en gezondheidsProducten Nederland had jointly sought to persuade the court to scrap the list.
