On April 25, France adopted an executive order banning the placement of foods containing titanium dioxide on the market for one year beginning January 1, 2020.  See our blog on the topic here.

On May 13, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), published a statement on the risk review performed by the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES).  EFSA concluded, in part, that the ANSES evaluation did not identify any new information that would overturn EFSA’s previous scientific assessments of titanium dioxide, the most recent of which was published in 2018.  For more, see the blog post.

France’s executive order was the topic of the European Commission Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed Section Novel Food and Toxicological Safety of the Food Chain’s May 13 meeting.    One major topic of concern is that a member state unilaterally reversed course on a safety determination made by Europe as a whole less than a year after the determination had been made – raising concerns about Europe’s ability to maintain a uniform regulatory landscape.