The 44th Codex Nutrition Committee (CCNFSDU) will meet once again in Dresden next week, and will begin with a debate about when and why new standards should be developed and whether they will help or hinder the broader goals of sustainability, food security and environmental protection. (1)

This Committee is one of the most controversial, with food and agri-pharma industries typically comprising over 40% of all participants and 28% of seats on Member State delegations. This is especially important because Member States have voting rights.

The lack of transparency, poor conflict of interest safeguards and pressure from the world’s most powerful exporting nations, has led to Codex adopting standards that have given the green light to the global trade of many of the ultra-processed products that have done so much harm to our health and the environment. The long shelf life needed for global trading leads to extensive processing, synthetic fortification, additives and sweeteners.

IBFAN – the global citizens network that has been protecting child health since 1979, has been attending Codex Nutrition meetings since 1995 when the World Trade Organisation (WTO) was established and was mandated to refer to Codex Standards in trade disputes. Codex standards that fail to adequately protect health, have regularly been used in attempts to stop governments bringing in strong marketing controls for fear of triggering costly, time-consuming challenges at WTO and elsewhere – the challenges have a chilling effect on policy-making (2)

Here are some of proposals that will be discussed next week:

• Agenda Item 6.2. A proposal from the USA to create a new standard to cover all foods for children 6-26 months. IBFAN will oppose this proposal and believes that it is likely to legitimise yet more plastic packaged, harmful and wasteful products, sold back to families as safe and ‘value-added’. At six months infants can self-regulate and eat a range of  bio-diverse, healthy family foods. Confidence in these foods is undermined by the promotion of commercial baby foods. (3)
  
  
• Agenda Item 6.21: A Guideline on ‘probiotic’ additives for foods and food supplements for infants and young children. IBFAN agrees with the European Union’s opposition of this guideline and also has many concerns about the use of probiotics, especially in formulas.  We consider the term ‘Probiotic’ to be a misleading functional claim and that a Codex guidance will take us in entirely the wrong direction, undermining  bio-diverse, traditional food cultures and harming human, animal and planetary health.  It is worth recalling that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned “that preterm infants who are given probiotics are at risk of invasive, potentially fatal disease caused by bacteria or fungi contained in probiotics.”
  
  
• Agenda Item 9 A Discussion paper from the EU and the Swiss Government on methods of assessing the sweetness of carbohydrate sources in the Standard for Follow-up Formula.  IBFAN strongly supports this proposal and believes this could be very helpful in reducing the sweetness of these unnecessary products.
  
  We also have many additional concerns that plant-based formulas are being pushed as the sustainable, healthy option for children and that their use will help the planet.  There are valid concerns about the role of dairy products in the climate crisis. However,  plant-based formulas are far away from the healthy alternative that the term ‘plant’ implies. There should be no health, nutrition or greenwashing claims permitted for these products. (2)