Technical meeting on applications for food enzymes

About the meeting

The event was physically attended by more than 80 participants, including representatives from industry and the European Commission, EFSA experts and staff, with more than 160 registrants following online. During the two-day meeting participants engaged in an open discussion on scientific and procedural issues related to food enzyme applications. The cooperative atmosphere contributed to the alignment of expectations, a mutual understanding of needs and challenges, and practical proposals for solutions, which will pave the way for better quality dossiers and a more efficient risk assessment process.
The programme consisted of four sessions. Session 1 focused on practical arrangements under the Transparency Regulation for handling food enzyme applications, including presentations from EFSA on support initiatives, confidentiality claims, and communication channels. Following presentations on EFSA’s and applicants’ experience with food enzyme applications, the first day of the meeting concluded with a lively Q&A. The second day started with Session 2 featuring an intervention from the European Commission on the preparation of a Union list for food enzymes and the follow-up of negative and inconclusive opinions. 
Session 3 focused on new tools developed by EFSA to improve the risk assessment of food enzymes, including the webtool FEIM and the bioinformatic pipeline behind the catalogue of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes in Bacillus species used to produce food enzymes and feed additives. Session 4 addressed recurring issues in dossier evaluation, with EFSA experts and staff highlighting frequently missing information and answering questions from stakeholders. The second day of the meeting also concluded with a lively Q&A.

In line with EFSA’s efforts for openness, transparency and increased dialogue with stakeholders, the presentations given by EFSA are available to serve as further source of information for building better food enzymes dossiers.

Contact

For more information, do not hesitate to contact the organising committee at events [at] efsa.europa.eu (events[at]efsa[dot]europa[dot]eu).