Latest developments in EU food law

Regulation (EU) 2026/1739 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 July 2026, published in the Official Journal on 29 July 2026, amends Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013, among others, to strengthen the position of farmers in the food supply chain. It inserts a new Part Ia into Annex VII, which defines meat as the edible parts of animals and reserves for meat products, at all stages of marketing, the term «meat» and thirty-one other designations, mainly names of species and of cuts, such as «chicken», «steak» or «bacon». These designations may not be used for plant-based foods, nor for foods consisting of, isolated from or produced from cell or tissue cultures.

Fishery and aquaculture products are excluded, as are any products the Commission lists by delegated act because their exact nature is clear from established use. Designations not on the list, such as «burger» or «sausage», are not reserved, so their use for plant-based products remains subject to the general rules of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, as interpreted in Protéines France (C-438/23). These provisions apply from 19 August 2029; products manufactured in or imported into the Union before that date may be marketed until stocks are exhausted and, at the latest, until 19 August 2032.

A commentary on the consumer standard underlying this reservation is available on LinkedIn.

This is probably the most significant case-law development for borderline substances. On 13 November 2024, the General Court of the European Union, in four joined cases (T-189/21 Aloe Vera of Europe, T-271/21 Ortis, T-274/21 Synadiet and T-302/21 Aboca), annulled most of Regulation (EU) 2021/468, which had added several botanical preparations containing hydroxyanthracene derivatives (aloe, Rhamnus, Cassia senna, Rheum) to Annex III of Regulation (EC) No 1925/2006.

The Court held that the Commission had exceeded its powers, since Article 8 of that Regulation only allows it to regulate “substances”, not “preparations”, and that it had not sufficiently established, on the basis of the EFSA opinion, that intake of those substances in the quantities present in the preparations posed a risk.

Importantly, the judgment is not final. The European Commission appealed to the Court of Justice on 24 January 2025 (Case C-48/25 P), and the appeal has suspended the effects of the annulment; a final ruling is expected during 2026. Until then, the legal position of these preparations remains, in practice, the restrictive one.

On 30 April 2025, the Court of Justice (Fifth Chamber) gave judgment in Case C-386/23, on a request for a preliminary ruling from the German Bundesgerichtshof concerning health claims associated with botanical substances whose assessment the Commission has suspended.

The Court concluded that no claim — not even general well-being claims such as “good for well-being” or “improves mood” — may be used in the commercial communication of products containing botanical ingredients unless it has been authorised, save where it is covered by the transitional rules of Article 28. The underlying case was itself botanical: saffron extract and concentrated melon juice. The judgment is already reflected in our nutrition and health claims review.

Less well known but relevant for operators marketing herbal products that also carry an organic label: on 26 June 2025, in Case C-618/23, SALUS Haus v Astrid Twardy, the Court of Justice ruled that a traditional herbal medicinal product registered under Directive 2001/83/EC cannot also benefit from Regulation (EU) 2018/848 on organic production; the medicinal products rules prevail.

By analogy, it is a useful demarcation criterion for any borderline product seeking to combine two different labelling regimes.

It is older and not breaking news, but it should be kept as a settled reference in any borderline substance opinion: on 2 March 2023, following a reference from the Vienna Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgericht Wien), the Court of Justice set out the criteria for distinguishing “food for special medical purposes” (Regulation (EU) No 609/2013) from both medicinal products and food supplements, treating the concepts as mutually exclusive and requiring a case-by-case analysis based on the characteristics and conditions of use of the product.

This is where most caution is needed, because the source is specialist trade press rather than formal Commission acts. According to NutraIngredients coverage in January 2026, final decisions are expected this year on fennel, berberine and hydroxycitric acid (the active principle of Garcinia cambogia), together with clarification on another group of botanicals that could enter the procedure; the green tea catechins (EGCG) file would also reach its conclusion, possibly with strict limits or even a ban.

The same source reported in July 2026 that monacolin K from red yeast rice was awaiting a decision on its proposed prohibition, expected later in the year. Ashwagandha was the subject of an expert session in the European Parliament on 14 July 2026 on its future regulatory status, although no formal safety assessment has yet been opened. CBD, for its part, has accumulated several novel food rejections over the past year (CBD isolate, synthetic CBD, Cannabis sativa tinctures and oils), while β-NMN received a favourable EFSA safety opinion — a reminder that the cycle is not uniformly restrictive.

Following the ANSES opinion of 12 February 2025 (reference 2020-SA-0047) on adverse effects linked to Garcinia cambogia, France prompted an extraordinary meeting of the relevant Standing Committee; the Commission confirmed that France could adopt restrictive national measures under the precautionary principle as long as there is no EU-level decision — a very clear example of how a Member State can act unilaterally on grounds of precaution.

Germany, backed by sixteen other Member States, raised at the AGRIFISH Council in December 2025 the need for the Commission to set harmonised maximum levels for vitamins and minerals during 2026. The Commission has indicated that it will resume preparatory work, with a public consultation planned for the third quarter of 2026 and a legislative text not expected before the first quarter of 2028.

On 19 February 2026, Denmark published a proposal to amend Regulation (EU) 2019/1793 to tighten import controls on arachidonic acid oil from China, following earlier RASFF notifications.

And in the Czech Republic, the Supreme Administrative Court upheld on 30 July 2025 (case 7 As 83/2024-47) the ban on marketing certain CBD drops — botanicals once again.

On 23 February 2026, the Commission adopted Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/386, authorising defatted rapeseed powder as a novel food, setting a maximum daily intake of 10 grams for people over ten years of age and updating its designation and labelling requirements, with effect from 15 March 2026 — a good reminder that every novel food authorisation immediately changes what an operator may place on the market and how it must be labelled.

On contaminants, the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed endorsed on 13 May 2026 the draft Commission Regulation amending Regulation (EU) 2023/915 to set maximum levels for mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons (MOAH), still awaiting formal adoption and publication in the Official Journal. For food supplements, the draft provides for 10 mg/kg from 2027 and 5 mg/kg from 2030. Mineral oil saturated hydrocarbons (MOSH) will not have maximum levels but indicative levels under a monitoring recommendation for 2026–2029. Both measures are relevant to oil-based supplements, including many botanical extracts carried in oil.

More peripherally, but worth watching for its effect on labelling and documentary compliance, Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on packaging and packaging waste applies generally from August 2026, with progressive restrictions on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in food contact packaging.

Directive (EU) 2024/825 on empowering consumers for the green transition sets 27 September 2026 as the date from which Member States must apply their transposing provisions (Article 4), which directly affects environmental claims on foods and food supplements.

The draft royal decree that would amend Royal Decree 1487/2009 and Royal Decree 847/2011 has still not reached the hearing and public information stage: the prior public consultation closed on 23 July 2025 and no articulated text has been published since. This is not the first reform in this direction. Royal Decree 130/2018 had already extended the list of permitted ingredients and introduced the mutual recognition clause, along the same three lines pursued by the current draft — food safety, industrial competitiveness and mutual recognition — as José María Ferrer Villar, head of food regulatory affairs at AINIA, noted at the time.

The consultation document itself specifies what the draft adds. The 2018 list introduced eight categories of ingredients — fatty acids; amino acids; dipeptides and peptides; coenzymes; flavonoids and carotenoids; nucleotides; polysaccharides and oligosaccharides; and other substances — but left out plants and plant preparations, which the original 2009 text had expressly deferred to a later phase. That later phase is now being addressed: adding plants and plant-based preparations as permitted ingredients is listed first in the consultation document, as the central objective of the draft. Three further updates are added: aligning the procedure for notifying placing on the market with the one already in force for food for specific groups under Royal Decree 1412/2018; revising the wording of interim measures and of the mutual recognition clause introduced in 2018; and accepting the term “suplemento alimenticio” as a synonym. The document justifies continued national legislation on the ground that Directive 2002/46/EC still only partially harmonises the field in the EU, with no prospect of full harmonisation in the short or medium term.

For operators planning to enter the Spanish market, this matters directly: the outcome of the reform will determine the national rules that apply to food supplements containing plants and plant preparations.

In addition, the mandatory measures of Article 6 of Law 1/2025 of 1 April on the prevention of food loss and waste apply from one year after its publication in the Spanish Official Gazette on 2 April 2025, under its twentieth final provision.