Stinky drink gets the EU whiff of approval
By Jeremy Smith
BRUSSELS Jan 14 (Reuters) - Fancy a stinky drink of noni fruit?
The EU is going to make it easier to obtain drinks made of what is sometimes called "cheese fruit", plus a raft of other exotic products, as regulators on Monday agree to streamline rules for for authorising unusual foods from non-EU countries.
"For these kinds of foods, we created a new notification procedure and this takes the use in the country of origin into account," a Commission food safety expert told reporters, adding that the aim was to eliminate any EU barriers to trade.
EU authorities receive between seven and 10 applications each year for approving "novel foods", defined as foods produced using new technologies and which do not have a significant history of consumption in EU countries before May 1997.
The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, will now process these applications and ask the bloc's leading food safety agency to carry out a scientific risk assessment; this is done at present by food safety authorities in each EU country.
If all is well, national EU experts would then authorise the food for sale across the bloc's 27 national markets. The revised rules, which will have to be debated by farm ministers, will not apply to biotech foods, food additives, flavourings, enzymes, vitamins or minerals since these are covered by separate laws.
One of the best known novel foods on sale in EU supermarkets is noni juice, made from a small tree found mainly in Southeast Asia and various Pacific islands such as Tahiti.
Toxic and smelly, the fruit has a pungent odour when ripening and is also called "vomit fruit". It is a staple for some Pacific islanders.
Recent applications include Argan oil, produced from the nuts of a Moroccan tree and rich in essential fatty acids, and baobab, a dried fruit pulp traditionally eaten in Africa.
EU approval has also been given to different yoghurt and cheese types -- often with added phytosterols, which occur naturally in vegetable oils and can help to lower cholesterol.
NO TRADE BARRIERS
For foods that are traditional fare in countries outside the European Union but little known by EU consumers, exporter companies will be able to submit paperwork to demonstrate that their product has a history of safe use in the home market.
Under the proposed revisions to a 1997 law, companies may also request EU approval by showing their product is "substantially equivalent" to another already on the market -- such as a new extract made from an existing spice or fruit.
The revised law would, in theory, cover meat and dairy products made from cloned animals but in practice, no such products were yet available on EU markets, officials said.
It will not apply to products coming from any offspring of cloned animals.
Last week, the EU's top food safety agency said cloned food products were safe to eat, bringing meat and milk from cloned animals a step closer to being sold in the European Union.
(Editing by Michael Roddy)
((jm.smith@reuters.com; +32 2 287 6834; Reuters Messaging: jm.smith.reuters.com@reuters.net)) Keywords: EU FOOD/EXOTIC
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