Testing the UK's approach to collecting health claims

Friday 1 December 2006

The Agency has published the outcome of work conducted by the Joint Health Claims Initiative, which uses Well Established Nutrient Function Statements (WENFS) to test the UK's approach to collecting health claims.

In 2003, the JHCI developed a process to identify WENFS, in order to inform work on the then proposed Regulation on nutrition and health claims made on food. In addition to developing the process, the JHCI piloted it on 28 vitamins and minerals, resulting in a list of WENFS.

This conversion of the WENFS list was undertaken to help the Agency test the best way of collecting health claims based on generally accepted scientific evidence at the UK level and help it formulate guidance.

The WENFS statements are not actually claims, and were based on criteria different from that now contained in the EU Regulation on Nutrition and Health Claims on Food. However, the JHCI has converted them into a format similar to that used for the collection and submission of UK health claims based on generally accepted scientific evidence (see the JHCI link below).

As the WENFS work was conducted several years ago the Agency is aware that there may well be more up-to-date references underpinning some of the statements, so care should be taken when using this work.

Also, some aspects of the JHCI�s work on WENFS do not fit comfortably with the format now adopted by the EU for listing health claims on food. The Agency will not, therefore, automatically include these statements on the UK list.

For more on the UK list of health claims on food and how to submit claims, see the links below.