Competent advice inFood law

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The situation for marketing foodstuffs has changed with the introduction of the European Single Market. The number of foods on offer has increased significantly. This is due to the fact that culinary variety is no longer allowed to be restricted by national regulations. The principle of origin applies here: products that can be legally sold in one member state of the European Union can also be marketed in the other member states.

Prerequisites have been set out to allow consumers a sufficient overview of the market. This particularly affects the labelling and marking of products. Another point to be considered is the fact that, as part of the Health Claim Directive, the only health-related advertising claims that are allowed are those that have been expressly permitted, i.e. substantiated vis-à-vis the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). This is the focus of the numerous regulations to be taken into account, and not everyone who wishes to market a food product always manages to maintain an overview.

This is where we come in. Our consulting service is aimed at bringing your economic interests into harmony with the legal provisions – from manufacture to consumption by the consumer. In addition, we can provide you with the same support in the food sector as we do in all of our other sectors, with registration, assertion and defence of industrial property rights such as trademarks, geographical indications, design patents and other patents.

Within this scope, we advise you

• in delimiting and classifying products in accordance with the German code on food and feed (LFGB),

• as part of classification of products as food supplements (NemV (German directive on food supplements)) and investigation into usable substances,

• in creating and marketing dietetic foodstuffs,
   
• regarding requirements which food suppliers will have to meet from 13.12.2014 onwards as a result of the entry into force of the Food Information Regulation (FIR),

• regarding the permissibility of additives and their approval in accordance with the German additive approval directive (ZZulV) and the German flavouring directive (AromV),

• in the field of innovative foodstuffs (Novel Food Directive), including in view of any potential approvals and marketing,

• in registering and defending industrial property rights,

• in selecting claims, taking into consideration the Health Claims Directive (Regulation (EC) 1924/2006 and Regulation (EC) 432/2012), the German fair trade act (UWG) and § 11 of the German code on food and feed (LFGB),

• in creating outer packaging,

• regarding labelling within the meaning of the German food labelling directive (LMKV) and the German nutritional value labelling directive (NKV), in future: Food Information Directive (1169/2011), including regarding the following requirements: best-before date, quantity information, lists of ingredients, required font sizes,

• in questions arising from the German directives on pre-packaging (FertigPackV), price information (PAngV) and batch labelling (LKV),

• in disputes based on product liability claims,

• as part of contract drafting, creation of quality assurance agreements, ensuring guaranteed traceability and drawing up of general terms and conditions (T&Cs).