“90% of the proposals presented by ministers Schillaci, Lollobrigida and D’Urso, with the decrees on insect meal, are compatible with European law. My opinion as an expert is that the Government has intervened on the issue in a correct”. This was stated by time.news Salute Francesco Bruno, full professor of environmental and food law at the Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome. “When insect flours for food appeared on the market, the European Union decided to regulate the sector because they were already used, for example, for animals or for recreational purposes such as fishing, but European law requires precise procedures so that they can be placed on the market to be eaten – he warns – We are talking about ‘novel food’ (cricket flour, the migratory locust, the mealworm and the yellow larva) which for Italy are, in fact, quite new, but they are less so in many EU countries that have a slice of immigrant population or, for example, in Asia where they have always been eaten”.
Lawyer Bruno analyzes the main points of the Government’s intervention on insect flours which will become 4 decrees. “From what I have read in the press, the decrees will focus on three points: the obligation of a clear label with the origin of the product and the risks associated with consumption, the stop to the use of these insects for some traditional products and in large-scale distribution, the separation into ‘ad hoc’ shelves Well – he points out – on the first point the Government makes a fair point: the labels must be transparent and correct and the information must be highlighted and not hidden. We intervene in European law to reiterate that the consumer – observes Bruno – must have all the information necessary for an informed choice when he buys the product “.
“In the second point, today there is European legislation which provides for a legal name for each food, for example milk must be made with milk otherwise you must write soy milk and the same applies to pasta: if it is made with flour of insects, you can’t just write pasta. It’s not possible to sell pasta with insect flour – explains the jurist – Here the Government underlines the peculiarity of Italian products, for example DOP or IGP which, however, already today do not include insect flour in the specifications The third indication is more problematic because European legislation does not provide for separate shelves in large-scale distribution, excluding gluten-free products. Therefore – he warns – the profile of the separate destination that the Government wants to give could arouse some perplexity in Europe”.
There is also another front that has been repeatedly paid attention to by the Minister of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forests, Francesco Lollobrigida, that of synthetic meat. Is there a need for regulatory intervention by Italy? “We are still on the high seas and it seems to me that the bubble that burst with Covid and the many start-ups born to develop synthetic meat has deflated a bit – replies Bruno – And then it is not a ‘novel food’, we are far from than when Europe regulates them”.
While “there is a gray area at the level of European regulations on probiotics and functional products – Bruno specifies – There are characteristics of the food that must be verified, health indications cannot be freely written, but authorization must be requested from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). In any case, the indications are only nutritional, i.e. if there is less fat. It is a gray area – he concludes – in which, perhaps, greater regulatory intervention would be needed”.