53) The Committee recalled that at the last session there were divergent opinions on the need for mandatory labelling of sugars, fibre, saturated fat and sodium when nutrition labelling was applicable. The Committee also noted that the Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses, at its 21st Session in September 1998, had discussed the public health needs for the mandatory labelling of those nutrients and that it had not reached any final conclusion so far.
54) The Delegation of Malaysia proposed to defer the discussion on this Agenda Item until such time as the advice from the CCNFSDU on the public health need for nutrition labelling became available.
55) Several delegations and observers expressed the view that the public health needs of consumers supported mandatory labelling of those four nutrients when nutrition labelling was applied. Several other delegations and observers indicated that the necessity of such labelling should be determined by national authorities, taking into account each country’s status of public health. Those delegations also stressed the importance of consumer education on food and health. The Observer from IACFO supported easy-to-read mandatory nutrition labelling using this approach, regardless of whether a claim was made. The Delegation of Japan indicated that further discussion was necessary on the definition of the additional four nutrients.
56) The Delegation of Germany, speaking on behalf of the member states of the European Union, introduced the current legislation in the European Community on nutrition labelling (Directive 90/496/EEC) whereby only when nutrition claims related to sugar, saturated fat, fibre, or sodium were made, information on those four nutrients had to be provided. The Observer from the EC indicated that this approach balanced the consumer’s need for information and the burden of labelling for the industry and provided more flexibility, and proposed to adopt this approach in the proposed draft amendment. Many delegations expressed their support for this proposal as it represented a good compromise and a significant progress to improve nutrition labelling.
57) The Committee agreed to change Section 3.2.1.2 to read as follows: "The amount of protein, available carbohydrate (i.e., carbohydrate excluding dietary fibre), fat: and where a nutrition claim is made for one or more of these nutrients, the amount of sugars, fibre, saturated fatty acids, and sodium
58) As regards the concept of "significant amount" of the vitamins and minerals (Section 3.2.5) and its footnote, the Delegation of Australia, other delegations and the Observer from the European Community proposed to change the figure of 5% to 10 or 15%. Several other delegations opposed this proposal, indicating that the revision would preclude the declaration of most sources of vitamins and minerals and needed further consideration. The Committee agreed to retain the current figure.
Status of the Proposed Draft Amendment to the Guidelines on Nutrition Labelling
59) The Committee agreed to forward the Proposed Draft Amendment to the Commission for adoption at Step 5 (see Appendix VI).
