Novel Food

Examples of Novel Food include:

• food derived from new production processes, e.g. bread, mushrooms and milk treated with UV light to increase vitamin D content;
• new sources of nutrients, e.g. docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) from algal oil;
• agricultural food from third countries, e.g. chia seeds;
• herbal extracts, e.g. rapeseed protein.

Novel Food is subject to general labelling requirements defined in the Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011. In addition, all nutrition and health claims must comply with the Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims made on foods. The complete catalogue of approved novel foods is available on the website of the European Commission (EC). In addition to the Novel Food Catalogue, there is also a list of novel foods whose approval has been rejected by decision of the EC.

The novel food legislation from 1997 had to be reviewed taking into account the latest scientific and technological advances. On 25 November 2015, the European Parliament and Council adopted a new food regulation (Regulation (EU) 2015/2283), and the new provisions have been fully applied since 1 of January 2018.

The approval procedure is balanced, centralised and includes generic approval. The EC processes all requests and issues authorisations. Therefore, all food business operators can market their approved novel food as long as the conditions for use and labelling requirements are followed.

The new novel food legislation will improve the effectiveness of the approval process and thus stimulate innovations in the food sector. It will also ensure the safety of European consumers and further expand the variety of foods available to them.