Guidance on the preparation and submission of the notification and application for authorisation of traditional foods from third countries in the context of Regulation (EU) 2015/2283 (Revision 1)

[Table: see text] Following the adoption of Regulation (EU) 2015/2283 on Novel Foods, the European Commission requested EFSA to develop a scientific and technical guidance for the preparation and submission of notifications for traditional foods from third countries. This guidance presents a common format for the organisation of the information to be presented by applicant for the preparation of a well-structured dossier. The safety of a traditional food should be substantiated by reliable data on its composition, its experience of continued use and its proposed conditions of use. Its normal consumption should not be nutritionally disadvantageous. This guidance is also intended to support applicants in providing the type and quality of information EU Member States and EFSA need for the assessments of traditional foods from third countries. The applicant should integrate the information on the composition and the experience of continued use and provide a concise overall consideration on how this substantiates the history of safe use of the traditional food and how this relates to the proposed conditions of use for the EU. Where potential health hazards have been identified on the basis of the composition and/or data from the experience of continued use, they should be discussed. On the basis of the information provided, EFSA will assess the safety related to the consumption of the traditional food under the proposed conditions of use. This guidance was originally adopted by the NDA Panel in 2016. It has been revised in 2020 to inform applicants of the new provisions introduced by Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, as amended by Regulation (EU) 2019/1381 on the transparency and sustainability of the EU risk assessment in the food chain.It is applicable to allnotifications and applications submitted as of 27 March 2021. The 2016 version remains applicable to notifications and applications submitted before 27 March 2021.

Database on apple fruit pests of the EU to support pest risk assessments

In December 2013, EFSA received a first mandate from the European Commission DG SANTE to gather information on the pests of apple fruit (Malus domestica) in the EU territory (M-2014-0016). To satisfy the mandate, EFSA developed an overall approach to systematically collect information on EU apple pests and to organise it within a bespoke database with support from the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety. Test data were collected for 12 apple pests (6 insects and 6 pathogens). Based on the experience gathered, the initial database structure was adapted and refined by EFSA, permitting more efficient data gathering. In September 2017, as a follow-up to the original mandate, EFSA was requested by the European Commission DG SANTE to test the suitability of the revised database in supporting risk assessors in third countries to carry out pest risk assessments of apple fruit as a commodity (M-2017-0203). As a first step, the data set on the 12 pests was migrated into the newly revised database structure. This was then converted into the MicroStrategy platform to provide a user-friendly interface for data search and visualisation. At the same time, a new data entry tool using the systematic literature review software DistillerSR was created to enhance data extraction for future data collections. The interactive data reports were shared with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) in New Zealand for their testing and feedback as potential future users of the database. The overall feedback collected from CFIA and MPI confirms that the EU database on apple fruit pests could become an important tool to provide third countries the necessary technical and biological information for their pest risk assessments. Addressing feedback from CFIA and MPI has further improved the database structure and metadata. The database of apple pests can be included in the EFSA Scientific Data Warehouse and extended to provide a comprehensive list of pests and host plants.