THE UK’s deadline for Novel Food submissions has now been officially moved with the Food Standards Agency (FSA) struggling to handle the welter of applications.
The FSA had perviously said that April 1, would be the date it would publish a list of all the products that could remain on the UK market.
To do this it expected all applications to be submitted by Monday February 8 allowing eight working days for an Administrative check and a further 30 working days for Validation.
However, an announcement today from the FSA said the deadline for applications had now been pushed back until March 31.
Further Analysis On Likely Winners Tomorrow
Emily Miles, Chief Executive of the Food Standards Agency, said: “Applying for novel food authorisation is the only way CBD products can remain on sale here. For the past year, we’ve been encouraging all businesses to submit good quality applications as a matter of urgency.
“However, we have received a large number of applications close to the deadline. This means that, in order to process these properly, we are adapting the criteria of products allowed to remain on sale from April 1.
“For some time now we’ve been supporting a pragmatic and proportionate approach to CBD regulation. Our commitment to ensuring that consumers know these products are being checked for safety remains firm.”
It went on to say list of products linked to validated applications will be published on the FSA’s website in April and regularly updated.
*BusinessCann is following this story closely and recently reported that over 400 applications had been received by the end of February. Tomorrow we will be publishing an analysis of this process and who the likely winners will be.
