The List of Banned Food Additives Will Be Expanded
The government has reviewed and expanded the list of banned food additives to ensure food safety. With the new changes, certain additives will be classified as banned, which will reduce the risks of their use in food production. According to the Ministry of Economy, this aims to prevent threats to consumers’ health and increase the awareness of operators, helping them avoid potential financial difficulties.
It is necessary to amend the aforementioned decision, namely to update the list of banned food additives and add a number of additives whose use in food production is prohibited. In this context, there have been many cases where operators import or intend to import food additives into the country for use in food production, even though their use is prohibited. Therefore, setting this by national legislation is crucial for the purpose of raising awareness, and it will also help operators avoid financial difficulties due to lack of awareness, – stated in the justification for the project.
In the published list, we can see that the banned additives mainly include colorants, preservatives, additives for preservation, acidity regulators, antioxidants, color stabilizers, thickeners, and more. A food additive is considered any substance (or mixture of substances) that is not typically consumed directly by humans but is added to food for technological purposes. The conventional marking for additives is the “E” prefix.
The law on food additives was adopted in 2007. It is being amended based on a decision by the Eurasian Economic Commission in 2023, which removed a number of food additives from the list of permissible substances, and these are now considered banned.