The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) will be providing advice to support a future EU-wide system for nutrition labeling of foods, including conditions for nutrition and health claims. These labels will be on the front of food packs.
The European Commission requested EFSA's opinion, which will help identify essential nutrients of public health important for the population, including non-nutrient facets of food such as energy and dietary fiber, as well as food groups which still play an important role in diets.
EFSA will also note its opinions on selecting criteria to guide on choosing nutrients, and other non-nutrition components of food, for nutrient profiling.
EFSA experts will look at recent scientific information, including reviews on dietary recommendations for healthy diets based on studies done on humans, and on EFSA's work on dietary reference values and nutrition profiles.
There has been a debate about front-of-pack labeling recently and how best to let consumers make healthy choices.
The European Commission's flagship food policy, the Farm to Fork strategy, is due by 2022. EFSA's opinion will help guide this proposal. EFSA's opinion is due by March 2022, and EFSA will also open a public consultation on the matter by the end of 2021.