Francesco Planchenstainer

European Food and Feed Law Review, Volume 19 (2024), Issue 2, Page 66 - 71

In November 2023, the Italian Parliament approved a law banning cell-cultured meat and the use of meat-sounding names for alternative protein products. The law aims to protect the national culinary heritage and echoes similar provisions in French Décret n° 2022-947, which banned the use of certain meat names for non-animal products. The Italian law goes further than its French counterpart by introducing a blanket ban on meat derived from cell cultures.

Francesco Planchenstainer

European Food and Feed Law Review, Volume 18 (2023), Issue 6, Page 344 - 357

With a comparative view, this article casts the light on the right to access to documents both in the US and in the EU. While this right is afforded to citizens on both sides of the Atlantic with the US Freedom of Information Act and by and Regulation (EC) no 1049/200, significant differences exist as how the EU and the US afford protection to the requester of access to documents and the third-party owning data shared with public authorities. By analysing case law involving the FDA in the US and EMA and EFSA in the EU, the article highlights the tension between the citizens’ interest to a transparent administration in the field of public health and IP and confidentiality rights.

Patrick Coppens, Francesco Planchenstainer

European Food and Feed Law Review, Volume 14 (2019), Issue 2, Page 152 - 159

The use of nanomaterials in foods is one of the emerging areas for innovation that is addressed by EU Food Law. New applications of nanomaterials require pre-market authorisation under the Novel Foods Regulation (EU) 2015/2283 or, in the case of food additives, under Regulation (EC) 1333/2008. Under the labelling provisions (Regulation (EU) 1169/2011) the presence of engineered nanomaterials needs to be indicated in the labelling of foods. These regulations apply in all EU Member States. Recently, however, controversy has arisen, in particular in France, with a seemingly diverging application of these laws and a legal initiative to ban the use of a food additive (E171 – Titanium Dioxide) based on safety concerns because of the presence of nanoparticles. The paper describes the background and provides a legal analysis of the consistency of these developments with EU legal principles. Keywords: EU Commission; France; Labelling; Novel foods; Food additives; Nanomaterials; Precautionary principle; Titanium dioxide.