EU legislation: Novel foods including traditional foods

If you produce foods that have been cultivated and consumed in your country for years, such as exotic forest fruits and oils of plants (so-called traditional foods), the EU market could give you and local farmers new market opportunities. However, producers should know that when their foods are ‘new’ to the EU market, EU ‘novel food legislation’ requires that the foods have to be authorised by competent authorities in the EU in order to be allowed EU entry.

This document provides an introduction to the authorisation procedure for novel foods, highlights the most important issues. Furthermore, references to the competent authorities of all EU Member States are given.