The Bulgarian Ombudsman Maya Manolova insists that a common European body should control e-foods

Ombudsman Maya Manolova speaks to the media, photo: Kiril Konstantinov (EU2018BG)

Introducing a common European legislation and a common European body with integrated control for monitoring double food standards and usage of additives in them. To that appealed the Ombudsman Maya Manolova at an expert conference "A Healthy Future for Europe: Healthy Nutrition for Children", organized under the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

"As an ombudsman, I think it is inadmissible for consumers to have different quality food within the European Union. The Presidency is an opportunity for Bulgaria to put these important topics on the table of the EU. The healthy nutrition of children and double food standards are undoubtedly important topics for all European citizens," Manolova said.

In her statement she stressed on the fact that the Ombudsman's institution is very active about this topic and has continuously insisted on an European Directive which should ban the production and supply of products with double standards.

"We conducted our own survey - with Bulgarian mothers who live in Berlin and Vienna, and we have indeed found that children's food and children's goods purchased at the same time from the same retail chains in Berlin , Vienna and Sofia, have deviations in their ingredients," said the Ombudsman.

Maya Manolova stressed that these vicious practices are absolutely inadmissible and unfair, and the argument that they are consistent with national taste and preferences is unfounded. "How do you judge the national taste of a 6-month-old baby?", the Ombudsman asked.

Ombudsman Maya Manolova shakes hands with John Ryan, Director of the European Commission's Directorate General for Health and Food Safety, photo Kiril Konstantinov (EU2018BG)

"Together with the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency, the Consumer Protection Commission, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, the Ministry of Economy and the Bulgarian MEPs from all parliamentary groups, we launched a campaign against double standards on food. Including well-known Bulgarian public leaders, NGOs, we have initiated a petition in the European Parliament, which is recognized as admissible in the beginning of this year and a debate on this issue is underway within the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament, "added the Public defender.

In her words, in the process of studying the double standards in food, the institution has also established a double standard in food supplements, the so called e-foods - colorants, emulsifiers, preservatives, sweeteners and others.

"According to the European legislation - Regulation 1333/2008, in the European Union 337 e-foods are authorized and allowed in certain quantities but their usage in different Member States is different. In some countries they are used more often, in others - less often and in smaller quantities. Among the possible explanations of this situation is that some Member States have their own restrictive national legislation regarding to e-foods and some of the currently authorized e-foods have been banned for usage in these European countries" informed Manolova.

She emphasized that strong control is needed because the monitoring foreseen in the Regulation is not applied everywhere.

"We think that this is a problem for the European Commission, for the Directorate-General, as well as for the European Food Safety Authority, as it is expected that common control rules will be introduced in all Member States," the Ombudsman said.

Manolova added that citizens`impression is that this issue is generally neglected, and the question of control over food additives is underestimated in the whole European Union.

The young people who developed the mobile application that scans food labels and informs people about the presence of E numbers in the product, photo: Kiril Konstantinov (EU2018BG)

The public defender presented two young people - Venelin Chakalov and Alexander Chaushev from Ivan Vazov Language School in Smolyan, who created an impressive free mobile application that scans food labels and informs people about the availability of e-foods in the product.

The Ombudsman pointed out that there is a serious public discussion about the impact of additives and e-foods on food, which in certain quantities are considered to be harmless, but according to Bulgarian scientists, their accumulation may lead to changes in the human genome.