Food additives

EFSA's role

EFSA has three main tasks in relation to food additives:

• Evaluating the safety of new food additives or proposed new uses of existing food additives before they can be authorised for use in the EU
• Re-evaluating all food additives already permitted for use in the EU before 20 January 2009
• Responding to ad-hoc requests from the European Commission to review certain food additives in the light of new scientific information and/or changing conditions of use.

Setting the “safe level”

As part of its safety evaluations of food additives EFSA seeks to establish, when possible (e.g. when sufficient information is available), an Acceptable Daily Intake ( ADI ) for each substance.

The ADI is the amount of a substance that people can consume on a daily basis during their whole life without any appreciable health risk. ADIs are usually expressed in mg per kg of body weight per day (mg/kg bw/day). The ADI can apply to a specific additive or a group of additives with similar properties. When re-evaluating previously authorised additives, EFSA may either confirm or amend an existing ADI following review of all available evidence.

When there are insufficient data for establishing an ADI, a margin of safety may be calculated to determine whether estimated exposure might be of potential concern.

In other cases, for example, for substances that are already present in the body or regular components of the diet or that did not indicate adverse effects in animal studies, there is no need to set an ADI.