Bread and Flour Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996

Explanatory Note

(This Note is not part of the Regulations.)

These Regulations supersede the Bread and Flour Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1984.

The Regulations—

(a) provide for exemptions from the Regulations (regulation 3);

(b) continue to require that wheat flour (subject to certain exceptions) be fortified with specified essential ingredients (regulation 4, Schedules 1 and 2);

(c) restrict the use of specified ingredients in the preparation of flour and bread and require that an indication of the presence of a flour treatment agent be given in the case both of prepacked and of non-prepacked bread (regulation 5, Schedule 3);

(d) reserve the names ‘wholemeal' and ‘wheat germ' for bread which complies with specified compositional requirements and prohibit the sale or advertising for sale using these names of bread which does not comply with the compositional requirements (regulation 6);

(e) create offences and prescribe penalties (regulation 7);

(f) specify the enforcement authority (regulation 8);

(g) provide a defence in relation to exports in implementation of Article 2 and 3 of, as read with the ninth recital to, Council Directive No. 89/397/EEC (O.J. No. L186, 30.6.89, p. 23) on the official control of foodstuffs (regulation 9);

(h) provide that for a transitional period a defence is available where there would not have been any contravention of the revoked Regulations (regulation 10);

(i) apply various provisions of the Food Safety (Northern Ireland) Order 1991 (regulation 11);

(j) amend and revoke specified Regulations (regulations 12 and 13).

The British Pharmacopoeia 1973, 1980 and 1988 and the British Pharmaceutical Codex 1973, referred to in Schedule 1, may be inspected at the Biomedical Library, Belfast City Hospital, Lisburn Road, Belfast BT9 7AB, tel. [phone].