The purpose of the label of the food product is to provide information on ingredients and additionally on its origin, production method, storage conditions, date tagging, as well as to enable to identify the producer or distributor of this product. Legal regulations precisely give instructions on the range and the way of the presentation of these data, so they could be clear and understandable for the average consumer. Since 25th of November 2005, the information about allergens’ presence must be placed on the label, regardless of their content in the product (Directive 2003/89/WE... 2003 – Off. J. L 308: 15-18). The Regulation (WE) No 1924/2006 about placing the nutritional information and medicinal claims concerning foods (Regulation (WE) No 1924/2006... 2006 a) is valid in all countries of European Union since 1st of July 2007 (Off. J. L 404: 9-25). It coordinates the legislative, executive and administrative regulations connected with this labelling. According to these regulations, “nutritional information” states, suggests or gives to understand that the food product has special properties concerning its ingredients. Those statements are of type: “the source of...”, “no... content”, “high content of...”, “low content of...”, “reduced content of...” with reference to calorie or selected ingredients’ content. “Medicinal claims” state, suggest or give to understand, that there is a connection between the food product or one of its ingredients and the health condition of the consumer. First type of these medicinal claims refers to the influence of the ingredient on the physiology. Such a statement is based on generally accepted scientific conclusions and could be properly understood by the average consumer, e.g. “calcium takes part in the process of building of strong bones”. “Statements about decreasing the risk of a disease” give information, that food product or one of its ingredients efficiently decreases the risk of such disease for a human. Nutritional information or medicinal claims are placed on the label together with the information about the amount of the product, which has beneficial influence on the consumer, who should not use this product and the information about the threats connecting with overdosing of the product. In the near future so called “nutritional profile” will be to be defined. It will give information about limits of content of some ingredients in the product. Such information will be compulsory for such ingredients like simple sugars, fats, saturated fats, unsaturated “trans” fats and sodium or salt. The importance of given product in nutritional methods, as well as its total consumption by all humans will be taken into consideration in the process of creating these nutritional profiles. The nutritional profile will be based on the scientific opinion made by EFSA. The nutritional information examples, available to be used, are given in the Regulation (WE) No 1924/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 December 2006 on nutrition and health claims made on foods (Off. J. L 404: 9-25) and possible medicinal claims based on generally accepted scientific data, are given in Commission Regulation (WE) No 116/2010 (Off. J. L 37: 16-18). The “Official Journal of European Union” includes also the directive for “giving the permission or its refusal for some medicinal claims for food products concerning their influence on decreasing the risk of diseases, as well as their influence on growth and health of children. Such statements are based on information given by the food producer.
Full text available in Polish in Adobe Acrobat format:https://www.npt.up-poznan.net/pub/art_5_17.pdf
| MLA | Krysztofiak, Krystyna, and Agnieszka Bilska. "Zasady znakowania produktów spożywczych." Nauka Przyr. Technol. 5.3 (2011): #17. |
| APA | Krystyna Krysztofiak, Agnieszka Bilska (2011). Zasady znakowania produktów spożywczych. Nauka Przyr. Technol. 5 (3), #17 |
| ISO 690 | KRYSZTOFIAK, Krystyna, BILSKA, Agnieszka. Zasady znakowania produktów spożywczych. Nauka Przyr. Technol., 2011, 5.3: #17. |
Krystyna Krysztofiak
Instytut Technologii Mięsa
Uniwersytet Przyrodniczy w Poznaniu
ul. Wojska Polskiego 31/33
60-624 Poznań
Poland
e-mail: kkrys@up.poznan.pl