The EU Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation is unlikely to stifle innovation within the food industry as many fear, according to a member of the European Food Safety Authority’s NDA panel speaking in London yesterday.

Presenting a paper at a conference organised by the Food & Health Forum of the Royal Society of Medicine, Professor Hans Verhagen, who is also head of the Centre for Nutrition and Health at the National Institute for Public Health and Environment (RIVM) in The Netherlands, dismissed a suggestion that the new rules, which govern the claims that can appear on foods, would impede companies from successfully marketing new products.