Ad Hoc meeting with industry representatives on the collection of food additive and food flavouring monitoring data

Background

On 12 January 2024 a first ad-hoc meeting took place with food additive and food flavouring experts from industrial companies, industrial representatives, and other associations registered in the new collaborative group ‘Knowledge exchange on data collection with industry’.

The meeting aimed to present the new data models that will be used to report use level and presence data under the new mandate on the collection of food additive and food flavouring data requested from EFSA by the European Commission.

The meeting provided an opportunity to present and discuss the following topics with the industry representatives:

• The new mandate to develop a food additive and food flavourings data collection system collecting analytical, use level and presence data, and allowing for direct data submission of monitoring data by Member States and other interested stakeholders.
• The new data collections on use level and negative presence data, which will start with a pilot phase in 2025 and 2026, and with five different substances that have been prioritised for the data collection of each pilot year.
• The draft of the new food additive and food flavouring data models aiming at collecting data suitable for continuous risk monitoring to assess dietary exposure.
• The results of the consultation with industry on the two data models, use level and negative presence data. During the consultation, 44 comments were received, the most representative of which were presented together with possible ways of how to address them. At the end of the presentation, the procedure for assessing the comments was also explained.

Fruitful exchanges took place on the above topics. EFSA would like to thank all participants for the constructive discussions and the excellent collaboration.