How is the safety of food additives evaluated in the European Union?

It is essential that before any additive is used in food, it must be rigorously tested to ensure that it is safe, and these results must be checked by independent experts. Only those additives that are shown to be safe at the levels of use that have been proposed are allowed to be used in food. It must also be proved that there is a need for the additive – if this need cannot be demonstrated, then the additive will not be allowed for use in the European Union either.

Until the early 1990s in Europe, food additives were controlled nationally, with governments basing their regulations on advice from their own experts. In 1989, the first European Framework Directive was adopted so that the European market for food additives could be harmonised, and a common system for safety evaluation and product authorisation within the EU set up. Three European directives – on sweeteners, colours and other additives – followed in 1994–5.

The European Commission is now responsible for authorising food additives for the European market. The Commission’s authorisation is based on the scientific opinion of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which is in charge of evaluating the safety of food additives. The EFSA safety evaluation is carried out by a scientific panel made up of independent scientific experts with great experience in the field of food safety.

EFSA also takes into account opinions from other international bodies, the most important of which is JEFCA – the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives. This group of international experts is sponsored jointly by the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the UN and the World Health Organisation.

The basic approach to evaluating the safety of food additives – or any substance, for that matter – involves toxicological testing. Various methods are used to assess the risks, primarily animal feeding studies, and these conclusions are used to predict what the effects will be in humans. This is used to establish an Acceptable Daily Intake, which is the level of an additive which it is safe to consume every day over an entire lifetime. This is used by regulatory agencies to set safe use levels for additives in food.

The extensive testing required, and their known purity, means that food additives are among the safest components of our diet.

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