Food trade has emerged in recent years as one of the more important and demanding of the sectors involved in food composition activities.
The technical food composition harmonization issues related to food trade include identification of foods, food ingredients, and processes; identification of components and methodological standards; units of measures and serving sizes; compositional standards such as minimum/maximum nutrient contents of foods; and proper labeling of everything.
The key international agencies involved, where affiliation must be sought by INFOODS and the wider food composition community, are the Codex Alimentarius Commission and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The Codex Alimentarius, a "code of food standards for all nations," was developed by an international commission in 1962 when the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) recognized the need for international standards to guide the world's growing food industry and to protect the health of consumers. The purpose of the Codex Alimentarius is ". . . to guide and promote the elaboration and establishment of definitions and requirements for foods, to assist in their harmonization and, in doing so, to facilitate international trade." The coverage of Codex includes provisions for (1) food hygiene, (2) food additives, (3) pesticide residues, (4) contaminants, (5) labeling and presentation, and ( ) methods of analysis and sampling. Thus there is significant overlap between the goals of INFOODS and the goals of Codex. Items 5 and 6 have particular relevance to food composition activities.
Several policies and agreements under the WTO have direct relevance to and/or potential implications for food composition activities. The most pertinent of these are the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement (SPS).
WTO has endorsed Codex-indirectly in the TBT and directly in the SPS-as the international standards body for food. Although Codex standards and guidelines have never been deemed obligatory, within the scope of the World Trade Organization some would say that they carry legal binding status until given greater elaboration or until challenged.
On 1 January 1998, INFOODS was given observer status with Codex Alimentarius. By linking INFOODS more tightly with Codex, the harmonization aspects of food composition that affect international food trade will be able to be identified and dealt with specifically and effectively.
In many countries, food composition programs seeking to maintain or increase funding are finding that highlighting the trade implications to funding decision-makers is more convincing than the more conventional approach focussing on implications related to health and agriculture. This is because food composition-related disharmony in the trade sector can lead to, and has led to, serious problems that affect the reputations of companies and countries; costly legal disputes related to charges of fraud, with penalties that include fines and imprisonment; restrictions in market access; and ill-will between nations that can have effects in other arenas.
In upcoming issues of the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis we will present some case study reports on food composition and food trade. In the meantime it would behoove all those involved in the management of food composition programs to be familiar with the important documents relating to trade, found on these Web sites: