The 44th session of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU44) has opened in Dresden, Germany, with high-level contributions from relevant ministries and co-chaired by Martine Püster and Carolin Bendadani.

In a video message, the Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr Cem Özdemir, highlighted the importance of Codex work generally and CCNFSDU work specifically. “Conflicts, wars and the climate crisis are threatening food security. Codex Alimentarius … bear[s] a special responsibility since safe food is an important precondition for food and nutrition security,” he said. He then went on to say that “interest in the Committee’s work has been growing for years. This interest, from all over the world, is also important, since we need good cooperation at the global level, in order to tackle the challenges in the agrifood sector.”

In reference to some of the key agenda items for this week, which include Nutrient Reference Values - Requirements (NRVs-R) for persons aged 6–36 months, Özdemir said: “Once again, your Committee will be focusing on what is most important to us: our children.” He said that the Committee “is known for its sometimes-hard debates on positions. I can only encourage you to take the utmost advantage of this personal meeting. Use it for an open exchange. Use it to find good consensus. That’s the only way to achieve palpable progress with standards setting.”

In her speech, the Saxon State Minister for Social Affairs and Cohesion, Ms Petra Köpping, congratulated the Committee on last year's achievement: “after 10 years of negotiations, you have been able to adopt the Standard for Follow-up formula for Older Infants and Product for Young Children in a revised version. This truly is a milestone because I know that the approaches have been very different in the different countries,” she said, expressing her great appreciation for the Committee’s work. “We are proud that Germany is the Chair of this Committee … let’s work together, the countries of the world!”

Dr Monika Mertens, Head of Directorate 22 Consumer Health Protection, of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, said it was “a joy for me to see that we are coming together today for a physical CCNFSDU meeting and that I am able to welcome you in person.” She commended the Committee for the achievements of the last session and underlined the importance of the upcoming CCNFSDU work.

Codex Alimentarius Commission Chairperson, Steve Wearne, noted that “there are no items relating to development of commodity standards on our agenda this week, which I hope will allow us to focus on completion of other key pieces of work and to assure our future agenda.” He continued: “I recognize that advancing nutrition and related standards requires hard work, whether in the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Meetings on Nutrition (JEMNU), at this committee session, or indeed throughout the year, and is only achieved thanks to the efforts of many. My thanks in advance, and on behalf of the entire Codex family, to all who have contributed.”

The Representative of FAO, Fatima Hachem, and the Representative of WHO, Rain Yamamoto, also gave introductory speeches. Codex Secretary, Dr Sarah Cahill, said: “It is my first hands on experience of this Committee. It has been exciting to see you work on areas such as ready-to-use therapeutic foods, an area I had worked on from the microbiological food safety perspective and see how the different areas of expertise in Codex can come together to develop, standards, guidelines and codes of practice that together provide our Members with a unique resource to support food regulation. It highlighted to me that while we work in each committee in our own area of technical expertise, together we are working to develop a unique Codex Alimentarius of food code.”

Other agenda items this week include the technological justification for several food additives, emerging issues, a guideline for the preliminary assessment to identify and prioritize new work and a discussion paper on harmonized probiotic guidelines for use in foods and food supplements.

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CCNFSDU44 webpage