Nutrition and health claims: guidance for compliance with the regulations

The Nutrition and Health Claims (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2024 amends the Nutrition and Health Claims (Wales) Regulations 2007 (‘the 2007 regulations’). It does this by modifying the enforcement regime relating to breaches of certain requirements specified in retained Regulation (EC) 1924/2006 of the European Parliament and of the council on nutrition and health claims made on food and drinks.

In Wales, compliance with food standards is enforced by local authorities. This will usually be the trading standards or environmental health department of the local authority or port health authority. They carry out inspections of products to check that they meet all relevant labelling and marketing standards set out in legislation.

This reform enables those authorities to use improvement notices as an alternative enforcement approach so that the first formal action under the 2007 regulations for breaches of the law on nutrition and health claims would be to issue an improvement notice rather than a criminal prosecution.

This brings the enforcement of nutrition and health claim regulations in line with other domestic nutrition-related labelling, composition and standards enforcement procedures to offer a more proportionate and less burdensome way of ensuring compliance.

We have committed to provide at least 3 months’ notice between legislating and implementation. The statutory instrument will be laid on 23 October 2024. It will come into force on 23 January 2025 in line with the nearest common commencement date following the 3 month period.

For nutrition-related labelling, composition and standards regulations this means:

• protecting consumer safety and public health
• ensuring accurate nutritional information so that consumers can make informed choices about their diet
• maintaining the competitiveness of businesses
• avoiding any unplanned intra-UK and wider international divergence to minimise barriers to trade

It is a criminal offence to use an unauthorised nutrition or health claim. That is, one that is not included in the legislation. Previously the requirements of retained Regulation (EC) 1924/2006 could only be enforced by means of a criminal prosecution (fine or imprisonment) and did not align with other food labelling enforcement.

The reforms offer an alternative enforcement step which is less bureaucratic more proportionate and largely welcomed by businesses and enforcement agencies alike.

The Food for Specific Groups (Information and Compositional Requirements) (Wales) Regulations 2016 and the Food Safety Act 1990 regulations already make provision for enforcement officers to serve improvement notices as an earlier step to build compliance in respect of:

• food intended for infants and young children
• food for special medical purposes
• total diet replacement for weight control

In those instances, where there is failure to comply with an improvement notice, enforcement authorities may move to prosecution for that failure.

The introduction of improvement notices for breaches to compliance with nutrition and health claims in retained Regulation (EC) 1924/2006 through this reform delivers the same enforcement regime and thus achieves the right balance of maintaining quality standards for consumers and robust and proportionate regulation.

These regulations amend the Nutrition and Health Claims (Wales) Regulations 2007. They modify the enforcement regime relating to certain requirements specified in Regulation (EC) 1924/2006 of the European Parliament and of the council of the European Union on nutrition and health claims made on foods. This will involve the introduction of improvement notices that should be used as a more proportionate first step in the enforcement of the requirements around the use of nutrition and health claims on food and drinks in Wales.

Welsh ministers make these regulations in exercise of the powers conferred by the following sections of the Food Safety Act 1990:

• 16(1)(f)
• 17(2)
• 26(1)(a)
• 26(2)(e)
• 26(3)
• 48(1)

Guidance on the use of improvement notices in other areas of nutrition law has previously been published by the Food Standards Agency in its updated food and feed law codes of practice for local authorities in England and Northern Ireland. Enforcement bodies and industry are therefore familiar with the use of improvement notices.

Further information on nutrition and health claims and the GB NHC register is available in the guidance to compliance with regulation (EC) 1924/2006.

Food Standards Scotland (FSS) issued an 8 week public consultation from 21 October 2022 to 16 December 2022 on proposals to introduce a new compliance notice for breaches of food standards in Scotland. The consultation sought the views of food businesses in Scotland. Scotland laid the Food (Scotland) Act 2015 (Compliance Notices) Regulations 2023 in Parliament on 25 May 2023, which came into force on 30 June 2023.

The UK Government published a separate consultation in 2023 to seek views on introducing improvement notices for nutrition and health claims in England. Their statutory instrument was laid on 20 February 2024. Nutrition and health claims improvement notices will come into force in England on 1 October 2024.

With a restored Northern Ireland Executive, ministers in Northern Ireland will be able to bring forward similar changes to enforcement provisions relating to the introduction of improvement notices for nutrition and health claims, if they choose to do so.