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The six-month transition period for rejected, article 13, general function health claims is too short to give companies’ the chance to change their labeling and should extended by a year to avoid empty shelves, says a leading European trade group.
“Given the short deadline, companies would have to change their labels and they will not be able to produce packaging on such short notice and sell through their stock,” said European Federation of Associations of Health Product Manufacturers (EHPM) director of European Policy, Cynthia Rousselot. “The result may be a shortage of stock for consumers.”
Europe’s leading trade group for small to medium-sized healthy food and supplement makers (SMEs) warned that the six-month transition period would hit SMEs hardest.
“…with a shelf life of up to three years for most supplement products the short length of time for transition would result in significant costs for SMEs,” EHPM said.
Rousselot added: “A more proportionate approach would be to extend the proposed transition period from six months to at least 18 months. Given that the enforcement of the regulation will be in the hands of the Member States, we trust that they will take into consideration the shelf life of our products when determining the timeframe for the withdrawal of these from the market.”
