Labelling of food and food ingredients as "without genetic engineering"
One of the introductory ‘Whereases’ in the Novel Foods Regulation permits the Member States to issue statutory provisions which make it possible to inform the consumer through corresponding labelling that the product concerned is not a novel food within the intendment of the Regulation or that the novel methods mentioned in the Regulation were not used to manufacture the product.
Based on this option, national labelling provisions for foods manufactured without genetic engineering were laid down in the Novel Foods Regulation (NLV, new version of 14 February 2002, BgBl.I – Federal Gazette, p. 123) that came into force in October 1998.
The labelling reference "without genetic engineering" may only be applied to foods and food ingredients which neither contain nor were manufactured from genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Furthermore, the products may not have been produced using technical auxiliaries like extraction solvents or enzymes derived from GMOs. Nor may they come from animals that were given feed or feed additives or treated with medicinal products manufactured using genetic engineering methods. Medicinal products manufactured from GMOs are only permitted if no comparable medicinal products, in terms of therapeutic efficacy, are available which were manufactured without recourse to genetic engineering.
