121. The Delegation of Australia introduced the document and informed the Committee that this paper replaced CRD 10 which was discussed at the last session. The Delegation indicated that some energy factors for macronutrients were already included in the Codex Guidelines on Nutrition Labelling. However, no factors were assigned to other food components, such as dietary fibre, polyols, other unavailable carbohydrates and novel food ingredients, that might be fermented in the lower intestines and release some energy. This was considered important because the assignment of energy factors underpins nutrition labelling of the energy content of whole foods and low joules claims.
122. The Delegation pointed out that the Codex Guidelines did not give any indication of how energy factors for these food components should be derived and that the derivation of energy factors was very technical matter that required the development of a consistent scientific approach to establish a suitable definition of the energy content of all food components.
123. The Delegation suggested not to discuss the matter in detail and recommended that the Committee adopted it as a new work; a Working Group should be established to prepare a paper for the next meeting on the definition of energy content and guidelines for using energy factors to determine the total energy content of a whole food; and the work carried out at the international level should be taken into account in this process.
124. The Delegations of United Kingdom and the United States in general supported the further development of this matter. The Delegation of the United States suggested to start the process by setting a general set of criteria that were based on sound science and applicable across different types of substances, and that the difference in methodologies for deriving and evaluating the energy conversion factors should be addressed.
125. The Committee was of the opinion that it was premature to request the Commission s approval as new work and agreed that Member governments would be requested by means of Circular Letter to provide their comments on national practices of assignment of energy conversion factors to food components, fats and sugars and derivation of energy conversion factors for novel food ingredients. The data should be directed to the Delegation of Australia who, with the participation of all interested countries, would prepare a document for consideration by the next session of the Committee.
