Legislative update: how food colours are currently differentiated from colouring foods and how the EU legislative review might change this

摘要

The present article aims at providing some general guidance in relation to the different EU legislation food colours (i.e. food additives which are attributed an 'E-number') and colouring foods (i.e. food ingredients without 'E-number'). In particular, the present note describes and explains the main criteria, to be used in order to draw a distinction between the two categories, especially in relation to the substances located in a 'grey area' of borderline cases, in the light of the 2013 CommissionGuidance notes on the classification of food extracts with colouring properties.