Food Additives and Contaminants Committee

FAC (1980). Food additives and contaminants committee report on modified starches. Report 31. Ministry of agriculture, fishries and food, London, UK. 

Food Additives and Contaminants Committee, Interim Report on the Review of the Colouring Matter in Food Regulations 197(FAC/REP/29,HMSO 1979). 

MAEE (Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food 1983) Food additives and contaminants, Committee Report on the Review of Metals in Canned Food. HMSO, London. 

FOOD ADDITIVES AND CONTAMINANTS COMMITTEE (FACC) REPORTS... 

Additives should not be used to cover-up or disguise poor quality foods to make them appear of better quality. Additives must be on the permitted lists recommended by the Food Additives and Contaminants Committee of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Foods, usually embodied in subsequent legislation in Statutory Orders. Regardless of need or of any other factor, additives should not be used if there is reliable and significant evidence of their being toxicologically unsafe. 

It has already been stated that one of the governing principles in the use of additives is that, so far as is known, they should be toxicologically safe when added to foods. In the UK, this has been achieved by means of permitted lists. These lists are produced by the Food Additives and Contaminants Committee (FACC) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) The FACC issues reports and recommendations on specific additives or classes of... 

Food Additives and Contaminants Committee (1970). Report The Leaching of Substances from Packaging Materials into Food, HMSO, London. 

WHO (1993) Evaluation of certain food additives and contaminants (41st report of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives), wto tech... 

The ADI was defined by the Joint WHO/FAO Expert Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants (JECFA)5 as ... 

The EU Directives 94/35/EC, 94/36/EC and 95/2/EC on sweeteners, colours and food additives other than colours and sweeteners, limit the amounts of certain food additives that can be used and the range of foods in which they are permitted. Similarly, the Codex Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants (CCFAC) has published its General Standard on Food Additives (GSFA), which lists the maximum use levels recorded world-wide. Care should be taken when using data from the EU Directive annexes or the GSFA because the figures represent the maximum permitted in each food group. In practice, use levels may need to be much lower to achieve the desired technical effect, particularly if used in combination with other additives intended for the same purpose. Furthermore, the additive is unlikely to be used in all foods in which it is permitted because other additives compete for the same function in the marketplace. 

Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants... 

The Joint FAOAVHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) includes Functional Use in the specifications published in Food and Nutrition Paper 52 and its Addenda. JECFA includes an indication of the functional use or uses, as part of its specifications of purity of additives. JECFA has developed these as part of the description of the additive, and although JECFA provides advice on specifications to the Codex Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants, the uses quoted in those specifications are not necessarily the same as the functions given for the same substance in the Codex INS system. Frequently more than one use is listed and these uses often refer to countries outside the EU, and may not include the reason for use listed by the EU. The various categories, uses or classes of additive used by the EU, INS and JECFA are listed in Table 11.2. With minor exceptions, the JECFA functional uses marked with an asterisk are generally regarded as processing aids and not additives and therefore outside the scope of this volume. 

Codex Alimentarius Commission (2003). Schedule 1 of the Proposed Draft Codex General Standard for Contaminants and Toxins in Food. Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme. Codex Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants, Thirty-fifth Session, Arusha, Tanzania. 

In the EU until 2003, the European Commission s Scientific Committee for Food (SCF) performed safety evaluations of food additives and contaminants. This task has now been taken over by the EFSA. EFSA s risk assessments and other scientific work are undertaken by its Scientific Committee and nine scientific Panels, each responsible for a different aspect of food and feed safety. The scientific work is also supported by external Scientific Expert Working Groups, each specializing in a specific subject (EFSA 2006). 

Chapter 5 of the document reviews the UFs used by UK Government departments, agencies, and their advisory committees in human health risk assessment. Default values for UFs are provided in Table 3 in the UK document with the factors separated into four classes (1) animal-to-human factor, (2) human variability factor, (3) quality or quantity of data factor, and (4) severity of effect factor. The following chemical sectors are addressed food additives and contaminants, pesticides and biocides, air pollutants, drinking water contaminants, soil contaminants, consumer products and cosmetics, veterinary products, human medicines, medical devices, and industrial chemicals. 

The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) was established in 1955 to consider chemical, toxicological, and other aspects of contaminants and residues of veterinary drugs in foods for human consumption. The Codex Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants and the Codex Committee on Residues of Veterinary Dmgs in Foods identify food additives, contaminants, and veterinary drug residues that should receive priority evaluation and refer them to JECFA for assessment before incorporating them into Codex standards. 

WHO selects JECFA committee members (experts) to conduct the toxicological evaluation of food additives and contaminants and establishing an acceptable daily intake (ADI). FAO selects JECFA experts to establish specifications for the identity and purity of food additives and to assess their intake. Scientists are chosen for their expertise to serve on JECFA committees according to the types of compounds on the agenda, and membership is on an ad hoc basis using individual scientists from all regions of the world. 

Abbreviations. WHO, World Health Organization FAO, Food and Agriculture Organization CCFAC, Codex Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants JECFA, Joint Food and Agriculture Organiza-tion/World Health Organization Expert Committee on Food Additives ADI, acceptable daily intake INS, International Numbering System. 

World Health Organization, in Evaluation of Certain Veterinary Drug Residues in Food, Thirty-sixth Report of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives, Technical Report Series 799, World Health Organization, Geneva (1990). World Health Organization, in Principles for the Safety Assessment of Food Additives and Contaminants in Food, Environmental Health Criteria 70, World Health Organization, Geneva, p. 75 (1987). 

In 1961/62 the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) established the Joint FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) to elaborate international food standards and codes of practice for questions related to food. Questions concerning contaminants were dealt with, partly by the Commodity Committees and partly in the Codex Committee for Food Additives and Contaminants (CCFAC). The Codex Alimentarius system concerning contaminants is described in section 12.2. 

Questions concerning contaminants were originally dealt with, partly by the many Commodity Committees, and partly in the Codex Committee for Food Additives, which became in the 1980s - when discussions on contaminants gained more prominence in the deliberations of the Committee - the Codex Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants (CCFAC). Now, the CCFAC, which meets every year, normally in The Hague, The Netherlands, is the appropriate forum in Codex for discussions concerning contaminants. 

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