This is part three of our ‘FDA Import Series’ where we offer insights to our European community who are exporting products or thinking about exporting products into the US.

With over 195 countries operating imports and exports throughout the global supply chain, importing into the U.S. has its own unique set of processes governed by the FDA and Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).

If you’re importing products into the United States or thinking about entering the US market, you’ll want to join this webinar to help shore up your understanding of FSMA in particular the Foreign Supplier Verification Program (FSVP) and bolster your strategy by knowing more about the challenges, pitfalls, and detention risks. In addition, leveraging technology to filter alerts specific to your products, your partner’s products, or even specific locations can help you make lightning-fast decisions that can salvage your bottom line.

The British Frozen Food Federation (BFFF) will host a ‘Meet the Buyer’ event on Tuesday 14 February. BFFF members will showcase their products to Aldi Buyers in a MasterChef-style event.

The event comes on the back of Aldi’s success at the 2022 Frozen Food Awards, as the supermarket’s Cheese and Onion Quarter Pounders won the Retail Product of the Year category. Aldi is now seeking to extend its frozen range and looks forward to working with the BFFF to ensure it stocks an even bigger selection of high-quality frozen products in its stores.

Rupert Ashby, chief executive of the British Frozen Food Federation added: “The event we are hosting on 14 February is an excellent opportunity for our members to meet the buyers of one of the UK’s leading supermarkets.

“The member companies will arrive for a meet and greet with the Aldi Buying Team, where they will learn about the Aldi frozen buying process, followed by a great opportunity to present their products to Aldi in the best way they can, fully prepared and ready to eat.”

The event is part of the BFFF’s continued work to promote the interests of the frozen food industry. Frozen food offers consumers excellent value without compromising on quality and is the premier choice for consumers who are looking for tasty, affordable and nutritious options during their weekly shop.

The BFFF were recently invited to attend a meeting called by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to discuss the  Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill (REUL Bill)  in terms of Nutrition Labelling Composition and Standards.

As you will be aware, the REUL Bill is a framework which provides powers to ministers to decide whether to amend, retain or revoke any of the Retained EU Laws, of which there are >2,400!

The aim of the meeting was to understand, from a Nutrition Labelling Composition and Standards perspective, stakeholder views in terms of what degree of reform industry might be expecting and how that measures up to what ministers would agree to and the timetable might allow.

The BFFF Technical Expert Group came together to discuss this subject on January 25^th and whilst we agreed there is definitely room for improvement in parts, many concerns were also tabled. On the whole, these concerns mirrored those which had been voiced by industry at the DHSC meeting, a summary of which is below:

Concerns:

• Ensuring ongoing compliance with different regulations and avoiding barriers to trade.
• Ensuring preservation of core compositional standards.
• Divergence removes the competitive advantage.
• Costly to comply with different regulations e.g., labelling differences UK v EU.
• Acceptance of, and confusion caused by products on UK market with different labelling systems e.g., Nutriscore.
• Negative impact on trade and growth.
• Interdependencies between food and labelling legislation.
• Risk to stability if too many changes in 2023.
• Introduction of errors into legislation if rushed.
• Need to review accompanying guidance.
• Preservation of ‘complicated/messy/patchwork’ legislation.
• Civil service under resourced – REUL on top of business-as-usual work.
• Early notice needed if something is to be revoked.

If BFFF members have anything you wish us to raise about the REUL Bill, then please do let us know. We will be feeding back the points comments from the Technical Expert Group but we have been told the plan is to continue engaging with industry on a regular basis as the Bill progresses so your input would be most welcomed. Please email deniserion@bfff.co.uk

The BFFF Technical Expert Group held their first hybrid meeting of the year on January 25^th which proved to be a real success.

Altogether 17 experts joined the session, 9 in person and the remainder joining virtually, which was held at a new venue, the Newark Showground.

As always, we had a packed agenda which generated some interesting discussions including:

• Divergence
• The latest updates on food incidents & supply chain issues including the grey market, caustic soda, peanut in soya lecithin and Listeria in smoked fish.
• Detail of the Technical and Health and Safety Conferences on March 8^th including an exciting Bring Your Team discount offer !

We were also pleased to welcome guest attendee Melissa Toney, Food Safety and Regulatory Lead from NFU Mutual. Melissa gave the group a whistle stop tour of her role and the work of the NFU Mutual. We hope that in making this initial introduction, it will help to identify potential areas for assistance and collaboration going forward. Should any members wish to hear more about the work of NFU Mutual, then please let us know and we will happily facilitate.

Due to confidentiality reasons, we are unable to circulate the full set of minutes, but if you wish to know more on any of the subjects discussed then please feel free to contact deniserion@bfff.co.uk for the latest updates.

In the meantime, we would like to thank the members of the Technical Expert Group for their continued support and dedication on behalf of the whole membership.