Business Cann (UK) reports
THE head of the Food Standards Agency (FSA) says it is now only a matter of weeks before it publishes further details on the CBD products and companies which will be allowed to remain on the UK market.
At an FSA board meeting last week CEO Emily Miles said one of the reasons it had missed its March 31 deadline was due to the ‘quality of applications being lower than anticipated’.
She went on to say that 210 applications, representing thousands of products – were still under consideration.
Three Things Possible
Ms Miles said that ‘over the next few months’ they would update the industry and three things are possible.
This includes publishing two lists;
-a Public List of Validated Products
-a second ‘On-Hold’ list for applications where it expected all the necessary information to be provided in a ‘timely manner in order that the application will be validated’.
The FSA has so far rejected some 600 applications and she went on to say it expected to reject more ‘due to insufficient information for validation and no prospect of that information being provided’.
Ms Miles said it had stepped-up talks with Trading Standards which will be provided with required information to begin enforcement action against those companies whose applications have been rejected.
She told the meeting: “We will shortly have triaged all applications into the three categories above. After this time, only those products on the two lists should remain on the market.
“At that point we will remind stakeholders including retailers of this and will offer guidance to local authorities on the enforcement of novel food legislation.”
The Final Stretch
With just four applications having so far passed through the Validation stage and placed on the Public List the announcement it will be updated over the coming weeks has been welcomed by one of the UK’s leading CBD firms, Manchester-based Always Pure Organics.
Gavin Ogilvie, CEO, told BusinessCann he sympathised with the task at hand for the FSA saying it is in a position ‘unlike perhaps any other they’ve ever been in before when it comes to regulating a product’
“In CBD and cannabinoids, we have group of products that could be classified as food, medicines, cosmetics or also (rightly or wrongly) a controlled drug and it’s already being sold on the market.
Read full report at https://businesscann.com/regulator-issues-warning-to-non-complaint-cbd-firms-as-it-prepares-to-publish-much-anticipated-public-list/
