How fast is the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) novel food application validation process moving?

It does not look like good news. The only two companies (controlling three brands that contain 23 individually listed products) included in the initial list of validated applications both say they submitted their applications to the FSA in early January. Both also are at least partly based on synthetic CBD ingredients that have successfully navigated EU novel food application initial assessments, and so likely represent less workload for the FSA in terms of validation given their synthetic nature and prior history with European authorities.

Such a situation does not bode well for a June deadline that has been reported as the FSA target for completion of a final full list of validated applications – particularly given the late push to get applications through in the last few weeks of March before the 31st deadline had passed.
One bright spot to be taken away however is that one of the applications included CBD in secondary edible products such as carrier oils and chewable tablets. This suggests that the FSA may allow through more products than what has been suggested by some who feared only a few pure isolate formulations would be permitted.

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Overall, however, it does not look like there will be many conclusions to draw from the validation process or any near-term end to what is essentially only the first step in the full application approval process.

Feel free to submit your questions for our next blog post*

*Under CBD-Intel’s editorial discretion

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CannIntelligence

This article was written by one of CannIntelligence’s international correspondents. We currently employ more than 40 reporters around the world to cover individual cannabis and cannabinoid markets. For a full list, please see our Who We Are page.