EU legislation concerning identification and purity specifications, and references to other specifications
- Where Commission Regulation (EU) No 231/2012 laying down specifications for food additives (item A) contains requirements for the identification and purity of compounds used in food supplements, those specifications shall apply.
- In the absence of a specification in the above Regulation, the identification and purity criteria recommended by the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Section B) shall apply. These are based on the identification and purity requirements of JECFA (The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives).
- If there are no identification and purity requirements in EU legislation and there are no Codex Alimentarius Commission recommendations, other requirements developed by JECFA will apply (Section C).
- If there are no specifications as referred to above in points 1-3, the purity specifications recommended in the European Pharmacopea shall apply.
A. Commission Regulation (EU) No 231/2012 laying down specifications for food additives.
B. Codex Alimentarius Identification and purity criteria recommended by the Commission Food additives for which Codex Alimentarius The Commission has recommended identification and purity criteria to be found in CAC/MISC 6 ‘List of Codex advisory specifications for food additives’
C. The purity criteria established by JECFA
The identification and purity criteria recommended by Codex and other JECFAs can be found electronically in the "Combined Compendium of Food Additive Specifications" and in FAO JECFA Monographs 1, Volume 1 - 3 (2005), FAO JECFA Monographs 3 (2006) and FAO JECFA Monographs 4 (2007), FAO, Rome. The methods of analysis used for identification and purity studies can be found at the same web address and in FAO JECFA Monographs 1, Volume 4 (2005), FAO, Rome.