145th ACNFP Meeting

The 145th meeting of the ACNFP was held online at 10.30am on Wednesday 27th January via Microsoft Teams, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Executive Summary

• The Committee reviewed a cannabidiol (CBD) application received under the novel foods authorisation processes and were asked whether there were safety concerns with the proposed use of this novel food in the UK. The Committee first provided a general review of the application and then went through each section of the application. In this, they discussed the types of data that had been submitted, the strengths of the sections of the application, and the limitations.
• The Committee was provided with an update on ongoing work between the FSA, the UK Accreditation Service (UKAS) and the Laboratory of the Government Chemist (LGC) exploring routes for the accreditation of CBD analysis methods, for which there are none currently. It is important to have reliable analytical methods to ensure that regulators can identify and quantify the other cannabinoids present in CBD products with confidence.
• Members were invited to consider and provide feedback on the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs consultation on the regulation of genetic technologies. The Committee, working with a task & finish working group, decided to draft a response to part 1 of the consultation to send to DEFRA for 17 March 2021.

Agenda

Minutes

Meeting Papers

• A Committee Paper for discussion.  The Committee was provided with an update on the ongoing work between the FSA, UKAS and LGC around the analytical methods relating to CBD and other cannabinoids.

• A Committee Paper for discussion. The Committee was provided with an outline of the response required by the DEFRA Gene Editing Consultation.