John R Lupien
The Codex Committee for Food Additives (CCFA) held its 45th Session in Beijing, China from 18-22 March, 2013. The CCFA is a committee of the FAO / WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC).
The CAC was established about 50 years ago by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to develop international standards for foods and related codes of practice, guidelines and recommendations to protect consumers and ensure fair practices in international food trade.
The CCFA is the CAC committee assigned the role of assuring that all Codex approved food additives are used at levels that are safe and effective, whether included in specific Codex food standards, or intended for use in standardised or non-standardised foods. In earlier years of the existence of the CCFA its purpose was to endorse the use of additives included in specific Codex Commodity standards. In more recent years work has been focused on the production of a General Standard for Food Additives (GSFA) that includes all food additives intended for use in Codex standardised foods or for use in other foods traded internationally.
The GSFA has been constructed with a preamble that sets out how the GSFA should function, including setting up food categories that cover standardised foods and food products that have not been standardised. The GSFA contains three tables of food additives. Table 1 lists additives allowed in specific food products or food categories. Table 2 is a list of the GSFA food categories with additives allowed in each food category listed under the food category heading.
Table 3 lists additives permitted in food in general, unless otherwise specified, in accordance with good manufacturing practice (GMP). All additives in the GSFA must first be evaluated by the FAO / WHO Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) which sets specifications for each additive, assesses the use and effectiveness of each additive, and sets safe use levels on the basis of an acceptable daily intake level. If an additive does not present any safety concerns when used at GMP levels in food products, JECFA assigns the additive with an “ADI not specified” status, meaning the additive can be used at GMP levels.
In the past, the CCFA has given priority consideration to additives with a specific ADI, since these are the additives that may present food safety risks. This created a problem for the GSFA since the safest additives listed in Table 3 were in many cases excluded from use in any Codex standard unless the additive was listed in the specific standard, and were also excluded from use in foods in about 40 different GSFA food categories listed in an Annex to Table 3. Since the goal of the GSFA is safe use of additives, it is a curious anomaly of the CCFA work that the GSFA was constructed to discourage the use of the safest additives in a large number of food categories. It would seem that removing the Annex to Table 3 would be the simplest remedy to this problem but this has not yet been considered, and further consideration would have to be given to the use of Table 3 additives in food products for which there is a Codex standard. The simplest approach would be for the CAC to decide that all approved additives could be used in all foods on a “safe and suitable” basis, but this also has not been given any serious consideration.
Starting with the 43rd CCFA session, action was initiated to possibly remedy this problem. Progress has been slow since any change in Codex texts inevitably involves taking into account problems of different national policies, standards, regulations, and inertial resistance to change, even if for the better. Codex food additive approvals must take into account different environmental realities such as tropical versus temperate zone countries and differing food habits. However some Codex Member countries and regions such as the European Union tend to insist in CCFA Sessions that only their own rules or policies can be used for Codex work that applies to all 180 plus Codex Member Countries.
In order to make progress in improving the GSFA it was decided at the 44th session that all products in Table 3 that were acidifying agents, thickening agents, emulsifiers and stabilisers should be considered for more general use in all food appropriate food categories in Tables 1 and 2. Other additives in Table 3 would be considered at a later date. To help in accelerating this work, the 44th CCFA session agreed to an Electronic Working Group chaired by the USA to prepare proposals for Table 3 additives in Tables 1 and 2. The Electronic Working group received inputs from many Codex Member Countries and other interested bodies, and prepared a working paper for a physical Working Group meeting that took place in Beijing from 15-16 March. The GSFA Physical Working Group was also chaired by Dr Paul Honigfort from the USA Food and Drug Administration. About 40 Codex Member Countries and 25 Codex recognised non-governmental organisations (NGOs) participated in the Working Group session. IUFoST was represented in the Working Group session and the CCFA session by Dr John R. Lupien, Adjunct Professor of Food Science, University of Massachusetts and Professor Duo Li of the Department of Food Science and Nutrition, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
The Working Group gave detailed consideration to aluminum containing additives in view of a reduction by JECFA in the provisional tolerable weekly intake (PTWI) for aluminum from 7 mg/kg body weight to 2 mg/kg body weight. This reduction in the PTWI required review of all aluminum-based food additives in the GSFA. Various time-consuming science-based and non-science based interventions were made by Member Countries and a few of the NGOs in attendance. The Working Group eventually agreed to the discontinuation of certain aluminum--ontaining additives and reduction of approved levels for other aluminum containing additives in the GSFA.
The CSFA Working group devoted the remainder of its time to consideration of proposals for acidifying agents, thickening agents, stabilisers and emulsifiers. Initial discussion was limited to acidifying agents and resolving the confusion that bothered some delegations when a particular additive had more that one functional effect. Some progress was eventually made, and some recommendations were agreed for presentation to the CCFA plenary session. Much of the planned consideration of thickening agents, stabilisers and emulsifiers was put off due to lack of time, and the Working Group was unable to give and detailed discussion to five of the seven items on it agenda.
The 14-18 March CCFA session was chaired by Professor Junshi Chen of China. The session was opened by Dr Xiaohong Chen of the Chinese National Health and Family Planning Commission. Dr Chen gave details of current food safety work in China and assured the CCFA that the Government of China would continue to give full support to CCFA and CAC. The CCFA was attended by 66 Member Countries delegations, one Member Organization ( the European Union), observer delegations from 33 international NGOs, and FAO and WHO, about 400 individual participants in all.
First CCFA discussions were on a decision tree paper prepared by the delegation of Australia on evaluation of additives in the GSFA and in individual commodity standards since some discrepancies have been noted between the GSFA and some Codex food standards. The CCFA accepted the proposed decision tree, with explanatory comments to provide additional guidance on how to use some of the decision tree steps.
The delegation of Australia used the decision tree process to assess additives in adopted Codex standards for meat products, to align the meat product standards with the GSFA. Australia greed to prepare a draft paper on this topic, chair an electronic working group to hopefully finalise the alignment in the 2014 CCFA Session. Full alignment will require changes in both the meat product standards and the GSFA. Some considerations of flavorings will also be needed because the CCFA has not prepared a list of approved flavoring agents.
The CCFA discussed a paper on Guidelines for Evaluation of Food Additive Intake, prepared by Brazil for use by developing countries. The European Union delegation proposed revisions to the suggested text that would have had adverse implications for existing JECFA / Codex work of food additives and put into action the unrealistic EU method for food additive intake estimation. The WHO JECFA Secretariat representative, the US and Brazil delegations pointed out the inaccuracies in the EU suggested changes and the CCFA rejected the EU proposal. Brazil will continue work on these Guidelines through and Electronic Working Group so that further consideration can be given to the topic in the 2014 CCFA session.
Extensive discussion was directed to a note added to many Codex food additive provisions. The note, called note 161 states that any Codex provision to which it is attached in “subject to national legislation of the importing country aimed, in particular, at consistency with Section 3.2 of the Preamble”. This in essence negates the role of Codex to propose food additive rules that are valid for all Codex Member Countries. The CCFA reviewed a discussion paper prepared by Australia on Note 161, suggesting the removal or greatly limiting the use of the note. The EU and Norway stated that the note should be retained in the GSFA as currently present, in apparent attempt to impose EU rules on all other countries that wish to export food products to the EU. The EU stance ignores Codex principles about differing food habits and food production and product, or environmental conditions in other countries. In the CCFA 45 discussions many countries stated that the note should be removed, but due to lack of consensus further discussion will be needed. The United Kingdom agreed to chair an electronic working group on the topic so that CCFA 46 can further discuss the topic.
The CCFA also had agenda item on matters referred to CCFA by the CAC or other Codex Committees and Task forces, including a discussion about some GSFA additives that had no corresponding JECFA specification. Codex member countries will be asked for additive use of these substances, and if they are still used JECFA will be requested to prepare specifications for them. Another agenda item covered matters of interest from FAO and WHO and from the 76th JECFA Session. Some final CCFA recommendations on these topics were agreed and can be found in the CCFA report, which is available on the Codex website.
CCFA 45 endorsed a number of new additive provisions in standards for fish sauce, smoked fish, smoke flavored fish and smoke dried fish: for table olives, canned citrus fruits, preserved tomatoes and processed tomato concentrates; for tempeh, chili sauce; and for non-centrifuged dehydrated sugar cane juice. The CCFA did not endorse a proposal for the use of additives in quick frozen scallop meat and roe-on scallops processed with phosphates.
The CCFA endorsed a series of recommendation made by the 15-16 March GSFA Working Group. These endorsements covered the horizontal use of acidifying agents, and some thickening agents, stabilisers and emulsifiers in the GSFA Tables 1 and 2. While the work on this task will have to be continued since not enough time was available for full consideration of draft proposals put before the Working Group or the CCFA plenary session, the success in starting a more comprehensive approach to the GSFA is a major achievement. The USA will chair a further Electronic Working Group on this topic, and a Physical Working Group that will meet immediately before the next CCFA Session. The CCFA also endorsed new provisions for aluminum containing compounds, based on the recommendations of the Physical Working group.
A number of agenda items were postponed for discussion at the 46th CCFA session, including consideration of aspartame-acesulfame salt, and nisin. Some recommendations on the International Numbering System for food additives were agreed, as were new specifications for some food additives, as prepared by JECFA. Some concern was expressed about use of certain compounds as ingredients of food additive preparations, and CCFA and JECFA will examine this topic. A priority list of additives and colors was agreed by the CCFA 45 and will be forwarded to the JECFA Secretariat for action.
As mentioned above, the report of CCFA 45 is available on the Codex website, including the main report, and annexes on recommendation to the Codex Alimentarius Commission for final adoption of many horizontal food additive provision, and on other topics discussed in this report. The work of the CCFA is important to all food scientists and technologists and a review of the CCFA report should be of interest to all involved in IUFoST related work.
Dr John Lupien is Adjunct Professor of Food Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA, a former (1986-2000) Chief of the FAO / WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission, and a former Director of the FAO Food and Nutrition Division. He is a Fellow of the International Academy of Food Science and Technology (IAFoST), a former Member of the Editorial Advisory Board for The World of Food Science, and is a regular correspondent for IUFoST; E-mail: john@jrlupien.net
IUFoST Scientific Information Bulletin (SIB)
FOOD FRAUD PREVENTION
Congratulations to Prof. Dr. Puwiyatno Hariyadi who has been elected to the position of Vice-Chair of the CODEX Alimentarius Commission.
Dr. Hariyadi is a Fellow of the International Academy of Food Science and Technology (IAFoST) and Senior scientist, SEAFAST Center; Professor, Dept. Food Science and Technology, Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia.
(UPDATED) EBOLA VIRUS DISEASE (EVD): IMPORTANT ASPECTS FOR THE FOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMUNITY
EBOLA VIRUS DISEASE (EVD): IMPORTANT ASPECTS FOR THE FOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMUNITY
MEETING THE NEEDS OF THE AGEING POPULATION - IMPLICATIONS FOR FOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
SHIGA TOXIN PRODUCING ECOLI: GERMANY 2011 ESCHERICHIA COLI O1O4:H4 OUTBREAK LINKED TO SPROUTED SEEDS
ROLE OF FOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN COMBATING FOOD INSECURITY
