Notification Procedure
Pursuant to Articles 5 of Regulation (EC) No 258/97 the person responsible for the placing on the market of products which as regards of their composition, nutritional value, intended use and the level of undesirable substances contained therein are substantially equivalent to existing foods and food ingredients, notifies the European Commission of the placing on the market when he does so.
Substantial equivalence must be demonstrated either on the basis of scientific evidence available and generally recognized or on the basis of an opinion delivered by a food assessment body of a Member States. In Germany this competent authority is the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL). The notification procedure is described below.
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Notification of the product to the European Commission |
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(60 Days)
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Forwarding of a copy of the notification to the Member States |
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Annual publication of a summary of notifications in the Official Journal of the European Communities |
This procedure is not applicable to products containing or consisting of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for which an authorisation is mandatory. Further, the EC Member States have agreed that products derived from GMOs can only be notified when they have been proven to contain neither recombinant DNA or new proteins resulting from the genetic modification.
The list of notifications is available at the website of the European Commission (see bottom of the page).
