Food (Miscellaneous Revocations and Amendments) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations.)

These Regulations revoke in whole the Skimmed Milk with Non-Milk Fat Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1961, and the Soft Drinks Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1976. They revoke in part the Ice-Cream and Other Frozen Confections Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1968.

Amending Regulations to those revoked and references to them in other Regulations (specified in the Schedule) are also revoked.

The Skimmed Milk with Non-Milk Fat Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1961 imposed requirements in relation to labelling and advertising. The Soft Drinks Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1976 and that part of the Ice-Cream and Other Frozen Confections Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1968 revoked specified compositional standards, imposed requirements as to labelling and, for ice cream, advertising.

Several amendments are made by these Regulations to the Food Labelling Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1984. The principal amendments are that those Regulations now contain the requirement that certain products consisting of skimmed milk together with non-milk fat should bear a warning of their unfitness as food for babies, as well as provisions governing the use of the descriptions “ice cream”, “dairy ice cream”, “low calorie” in relation to soft drinks, and “Indian tonic water”, or “quinine tonic water”. In addition the reference to “the additives regulations” in those Regulations is updated to take account of newly made Regulations governing additives. Provisions governing the display of their alcoholic strengths in relation to alcoholic drinks sold otherwise than prepacked, and the giving of polyunsaturated fatty acid claims are now deleted.

These Regulations also amend the definition of “ice cream” in the Cocoa and Chocolate Products Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1976.