Food Labelling Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996

Names of ingredients

14.—(1) Subject to the following paragraphs, the name used for any ingredient in a list of ingredients shall be a name which, if the ingredient in question were itself being sold as a food, could be used as the name of the food.

(2) The name used in any list of ingredients for any food which has been irradiated shall include or be accompanied by the word “irradiated” or the words “treated with ionising radiation”.

(3) Where in any case other than one to which paragraph (2) applies a purchaser could be misled by the omission from the name used for an ingredient of any indication which, if the ingredient were itself being sold as a food, would be required to be included in or to accompany the name of the food, the name used for the ingredient in a list of ingredients shall include or be accompanied by that indication unless the provision requiring the indication provides to the contrary.

(4) A generic name which appears in column 1 of Schedule 3 may be used for an ingredient which is specified in the corresponding entry in column 2 of that Schedule in accordance with any conditions that are laid down in the corresponding entry in column 3 of that Schedule.

(5) Where an ingredient being a flavouring is added to or used in a food it shall be identified by either—

(a) the word “flavouring”, or,

(b) a more specific name or description of the flavouring.

(6) The word “natural”, or any other word having substantially the same meaning, may be used for an ingredient being a flavouring only where the flavouring component of such an ingredient consists exclusively of—

(a) a flavouring substance which is obtained by physical, enzymatic or microbiological processes, from material of vegetable or animal origin which material is either raw or has been subjected to a process normally used in preparing food for human consumption and to no process other than one normally so used,

(b) a flavouring preparation, or

(c) both sub-paragraphs (a) and (b).

(7) If the name of an ingredient being a flavouring refers to the vegetable or animal nature or origin of the material which it incorporates, the word “natural”, or any other word having substantially the same meaning, may not be used for that ingredient unless, in addition to satisfying the requirements of paragraph (6), the flavouring component of that ingredient has been isolated by physical, enzymatic or microbiological processes, or by a process normally used in preparing food for human consumption, solely or almost solely from that vegetable or animal source.

(8) In paragraphs (6) and (7)—

(a) distillation and solvent extraction shall be regarded as included among types of physical process, and

(b) drying, torrefaction and fermentation shall be treated as included among the types of process normally used in preparing food for human consumption.

(9) An additive which is added to or used in a food to serve the function of one of the categories of additives listed in Schedule 4 shall be identified by the name of that category followed by the additive’s specific name or serial number (if any). An additive which is added to or used in a food to serve more than one such function shall be identified by the name of the category that represents the principal function served by the additive in that food followed by the additive’s specific name or serial number (if any).

(10) An additive which is required to be named in the list of ingredients of a food and which is neither a flavouring nor serves the function of one of the categories of additives listed in Schedule 4 shall be identified by its specific name.

(11) In this regulation “serial number” means the number specified for an additive in any of the additives regulations or in Schedule 3 to the Bread and Flour Regulations.