Stakeholders Meeting on Acetaldehyde

6 February 2026, 14:30 - 16:30 (CET)

Online

Deadline:

30 January 2026 - 12:00 (CET)

Background

In September 2025, the European Commission (EC) issued a mandate to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), requesting a safety evaluation of the flavouring substance acetaldehyde [FL-no: 05.001] in relation to its genotoxicity¹.

The mandate has been assigned to the EFSA Panel on Food Additive and Flavourings (FAF) and the drafting of the scientific output is being tasked to its Working Group (WG) on Flavourings². Advice along the process is being sought from the cross-cutting Scientific Committee Working Group (WG) on Genotoxicity³. The evaluation process is ongoing.

Objectives of the meeting

The purpose of this meeting is:

to illustrate the background to this request received from the EC and the procedural steps applied by EFSA in addressing this mandate,
to present the preliminary considerations of the FAF Panel on the existing information related to the genotoxicity of acetaldehyde,
to explore availability of other relevant additional data that could be made available by interested parties to support the weight of evidence,
to clarify the timeframe within which these data could be made available to EFSA vis-à-vis the timelines for the completion of the scientific assessment.

Who should attend?

Via the registration form EFSA would like to identify stakeholders (e.g., industry, international organisations, Member State representatives, etc) interested in attending and that may have knowledge and data concerning the genotoxicity of acetaldehyde when used as flavouring substance. EFSA reserves the right to confirm the opportunity once public registration has closed and all submissions have been reviewed.

Online registration

The registration form can be found here.

The deadline for registration is 30 January 2026 at 12:00 CET

EFSA will confirm a maximum of 200 participants and reserves the right to prioritise requests to ensure geographical balance and a fair representativeness and pertinence to the technical topics of all stakeholder groups in the audience. Please note that, to ensure a broad participation of stakeholders, EFSA may limit the number of representatives accepted from each organisation.

The link to attend the event will be sent a few days before the meeting.

Organisational details

The event will be held online on 06 February 2026 from 14.30 to 16.30 CET.
The event will be conducted in English. Please note that no translation in other languages will be provided.