There have been a number of recent changes to the UK’s R&D tax relief scheme affecting many industries including the Food and Beverage sector.

BFFF members Ayming are aware of many frozen food businesses that don’t believe or know they can claim against the relief scheme when in fact they can. Even if you do already claim, you can see what this could mean for your business and get up to speed on all the recent changes and by watching the webinar in the link below, hosted by Ayming UK’s Associate Director for R&D Tax, Ben Craig.

Webinar | R&D tax relief scheme changes | On demand (ayming.co.uk)

The Plastic Packaging Tax (General) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 (SI 2023/622) were laid before the House of Commons on 9th June 2023 and have subsequently come into force from 1^st July 2023.

These Regulations change the Plastic Packaging Tax (General) Regulations 2022 (S.I. 2022/117) in order to make a change to the way in which tax credits are claimed in respect of plastic packaging tax (PPT).

Regulation 1 provides the citations as well as detail of the commencement.

Regulation 2 specifies how a liable person who wants to claim a tax credit in respect of plastic packaging tax should make that claim in a return.

Guidance is already available top businesses on how to complete to their returns and can be found here

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Food Standards Scotland (FSS) have both published revised Food Law Codes of Practice.

The FSA Code of Practices cover England, Northern Ireland and Wales and introduce a new model for delivering food standards controls.  All EU references have also been updated, to accurately reflect the law now in force, in all new or amended guidance published since the Transition Period ended at the end of 2020.

It is envisaged that the changes will help local authorities to take a more risk-based and intelligence-driven approach to inspection.

The updates to the FSA’s Food Law Codes of Practice can be found here.

Responses to the England and Northern Ireland consultations which informed these revised codes of practice, can be accessed here and here.

The FSS revised Food Law Code of Practice (Scotland) can be found here

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Parliamentary Committee have recently launched an inquiry into the UK’s trade policy in food and agriculture.

The inquiry will investigate the opportunities and challenges that new Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) present for UK food and agriculture, as well as their cumulative impact on the agri-food sector. It will also look at what support is available to food producers in light of lower tariffs on food imports.

Following its departure from the EU, the UK has signed FTAs with Australia and New Zealand and has also acceded to the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) free trading bloc. Negotiations are ongoing for further FTAs.

The call for evidence can be found here

All responses must be submitted by midnight on 29 July 2023.

Food Standards Scotland have recently published their Public Health Nutrition Strategy setting out a revised approach to addressing the statutory objective to improving the diet of the population in Scotland.

In the last 20 years, there has been little improvement towards achieving the dietary intakes set out in the Scottish Dietary Goals (SDGs).

This places a huge stress on both the NHS and society in general as the approximate costs of treating overweight and obesity in Scotland are estimated to be in the region of £363-£600 million, with wider related costs such as loss of productivity suggested to be between £0.9-£4.6 billion.

At present, the food environment heavily incentivises and promotes low-cost foods which over-contribute to energy, fat, saturated fat, salt and free sugar intakes. The strategy signals a greater focus on measures to influence the food environment supporting healthier and more sustainable options for consumers.

The strategy can be downloaded in pdf format here

The World Health Organization (WHO) has released a new guideline on non-sugar sweeteners (NSS), which recommends against their use to control body weight or reduce the risk of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).

The recommendation is based on the findings of a systematic review of the available evidence and suggests that the use of NSS does not necessarily provide any long-term benefit in reducing body fat in adults or children. In fact, it suggests that long-term use of NSS could have undesirable effects, such as an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and mortality in adults.

The recommendation applies to all people except individuals with pre-existing diabetes. It includes all synthetic and naturally occurring or modified non-nutritive sweeteners that are not classified as sugars found in manufactured foods and beverages, or sold on their own to be added to foods and beverages by consumers.

Common NSS include acesulfame K, aspartame, advantame, cyclamates, neotame, saccharin, sucralose, stevia and stevia derivatives.

The guideline is part of a suite of existing and forthcoming guidelines on healthy diets that aim to establish lifelong healthy eating habits, improve dietary quality and decrease the risk of NCDs worldwide.

The guideline can be downloaded here