EU food colour regulation: summary
- EU regulates food colours as additives requiring prior approval
- Approved colours receive E-numbers and strict category-specific usage limits
- Artificial and natural colours face identical regulatory assessment standards
- Six colours linked to hyperactivity require EU warning labels
- Growing US pressure contrasts with Europe’s additive-focused approach today
Artificial colours are in the spotlight.
In the US, artificial food dyes are being targeted, with many states aiming to ban or restrict them, while the Make America Healthy Again movement works to phase them out.
Furthermore, Swiss multinational Nestlé recently announced that it was time to remove artificial colours from its portfolio, aiming to be free of them by the end of the year.
But European regulators view food colours differently, with the distinction between artificial and natural not taking centre stage.
What is the controversy around artificial colours?
Artificial colours are controversial because they have been linked to negative health effects.
A paper examining the toxicology of food dyes states that some red dyes have been linked to cancer in animals, while yellow dyes have been linked to genotoxicity (the potential of a substance to cause damage to genetic material within a cell).
A particular source of controversy was a 2007 study linking six food colours to increased hyperactivity in children.
Consumers, particularly in the US, are highly sceptical about artificial colours and dyes. This growing scepticism has led both industry and lawmakers to aim to reduce their use.
How does Europe regulate food colours?
Food colours are regulated as food additives in the EU, explains Bregt Raus, managing associate at law firm Altius, with an approval process carried out by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
All food colours are subject to prior approval before they can be put on the EU market. To be approved, a colour must meet a technical need, be safe and bring benefits to the consumer.
A colour will only be approved if it restores colour lost through processing or storage, adds colour to an otherwise colourless food, or enhances the visual appeal of food.
Once approved, the colour will be assigned an E-number, and food labels must list the colour either by name or E-number. Currently, around 40 food colours are approved for use in the EU.
The use of any colours is heavily restricted. It is linked to defined food categories rather than allowed across the board, explains Christofer Eggers, partner at the law firm Squire Patton Boggs.
The limits that the EU sets for each colour are not absolute, but are different depending on the food category, Raus explains. Colours will have set limits for smoked fish or sausages, for example. Some food categories do not have a specific set limit, but are ‘quantum satis’, meaning ‘as much as needed and no more’.
“Underpinning the system is a simple principle: the permitted level is set no higher than necessary to achieve the desired effect,” says Raus.
Following the study linking six food colours – Sunset Yellow, Quinoline Yellow, Carmoisine, Allura Red, Tartrazine, and Ponceau 4R – to hyperactivity in children, the EU mandated that a warning label would be required on products containing them, saying that the product ‘may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children’.
However, the evidence was too weak to lead to changing the acceptable daily intakes of these colours.
Does Europe distinguish between artificial and natural colours?
In the EU, regulation does not make a formal distinction between artificial and natural colours, explains Squire Patton Boggs’ Eggers. This is in sharp contrast to the US, where this distinction is highly relevant.
“There is no assumption under EU-law that colours obtained from natural sources are in any way per se better than synthetic colours,” Eggers explains.
The more relevant distinction in the EU is between food colours, both natural or artificial, and foods, such as beetroot, which have a secondary colouring effect. While the latter are ingredients, the former are considered additives.
In short, while in the US, the concept of ‘artificial colours’ is a topic of debate, this is not defined in EU regulation. There, all food colours are regulated as additives.
In the EU, the distinction that matters is not whether a food colour is artificial or natural, but whether it is a food colour at all.
