9fbtechreview.comOCTOBER 2020so that they are able to make informed choices based on their preferences or health concerns regarding salt, sugar, fibre, allergens, trans-fat, nutritional information and so on. By helping the citizens to make informed decisions about the foods they get, the governments tend to go to the next level of consumer's protection by promoting healthier choices among the general population. To achieve this goal, policymakers need to first reach an agreement on what makes a food healthy, or natural, what is a good nutritional profile, what is a health benefit provided by food etc. Those aspects are still under debate, mainly because of the different understanding by the relevant agencies in the world. This is clearly the case in the area of health claims: although the need of a sound scientific substantiation is agreed upon by most of the regulatory agencies, the required level of proof and the wordings to be used in consumers' products is yet to be harmonized. The lack of common understanding creates consumer confusion and places the industries working globally in an unfair situation, with the same product having one health claim allowed in the packaging in one country and being forbidden in another one. Other areas are still awaiting regulations like the use of the word "natural" in food labelling. Most regulatory agencies have not engaged in rulemaking to establish a definition or the conditions to consider a food to be natural. Food companies can be inspired by the ISO specification2017), which only applies to B to B communications and not to the consumers or by national guidelineswhich may create conflict with free movement of goods and mutual recognition legislation. Another areas that would probably be regulated in the future is the one of, lab meat or cultured meatas well as the growing field of new fermented foods and drinks. Functional foods with new properties are one of the pillars of the food industry: producing products with new techniques at a cellular or molecular level, or with new processeschallenge the assumptions, open debates on labelling and shows, once again, that regulations are always behind consumers' trends and industry innovation. Although regulations influence consumer choices and, as a consequence, the industry to produce foods that reach compliance, the reverse phenomenon is also true: consumers' demands have a big impact on the evolution of the regulatory framework. Marketing trends driven by consumers' concerns on environmental/climate change, sustainable practices or nutritional habits highlight the need for new regulatory frameworks. Consumers expect products contributing to their overall health, and therefore innovation is strongly needed. For this reason, regulatory systems need to constantly evolve and adapt. This could be achieved by setting global experts panels, composed of scientists, industry and regulators, which collaborate to set out an efficient framework that provide healthy and safe foods to consumerswhile allowing food industry to bring innovative products to the market. Food safety and consumers' health has always been at the centre of global debates
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