The Bread and Flour Regulations 1998

Title and commencement

1.  These Regulations may be cited as the Bread and Flour Regulations 1998 and shall come into force on 19th February 1998.

Interpretation

2.—(1) In these Regulations, unless the context otherwise requires—

“the Act” means the Food Safety Act 1990;

“bread” means a food of any size, shape or form which—

(a)

is usually known as bread, and

(b)

consists of a dough made from flour and water, with or without other ingredients, which has been fermented by yeast or otherwise leavened and subsequently baked or partly baked,

but does not include buns, bunloaves, chapatis, chollas, pitta bread, potato bread or bread specially prepared for coeliac sufferers;

“EEA Agreement” means the Agreement on the European Economic Area(1) signed at Oporto on 2 May 1992, as adjusted by the Protocol(2) signed at Brussels on 17 March 1993;

“EEA State” means a State which is a Contracting Party to the EEA Agreement;

“enzyme preparation” means any food additive which consists of one or more enzymes with or without the addition of supplementary material to facilitate the storage, sale, standardisation, dilution or dissolution of the enzyme or enzymes;

“flour” means the product which is derived from, or separated during, the milling or grinding of cleaned cereal whether or not the cereal has been malted or subjected to any other process, and includes meal, but does not include other cereal products, such as separated cereal bran, separated cereal germ, semolina or grits;

“flour bleaching agent” means any food additive primarily used to remove colour from flour;

“flour treatment agent” means any food additive, other than an enzyme preparation, which is added to flour or dough to improve its baking quality;

“food additive” has the meaning assigned to it by the Miscellaneous Food Additives Regulations 1995(3);

“food authority” does not include—

(a)

the council of a district in a non-metropolitan county in England except where the county functions have been transferred to that council pursuant to a structural change;

(b)

the appropriate Treasurer referred to in section 5(1)(c) of the Act (which deals with the Inner Temple and the Middle Temple);

“ingredient” has the meaning assigned to it by the Food Labelling Regulations 1996(4);

“labelling” has the meaning assigned to it by the Food Labelling Regulations 1996;

“the labelling regulations” means the Food Labelling Regulations 1996;

“member State” means a member State of the European Community;

“sell” includes offer or expose for sale and includes have in possession for sale, and “sale” shall be construed accordingly.

(2) Any reference in these Regulations to a numbered regulation or Schedule shall, unless the reference is to a regulation of, or Schedule to, specified regulations, be construed as a reference to the regulation or Schedule so numbered in these Regulations.

Exemptions

3.—(1) These Regulations, except in so far as they relate to advertising, shall not apply to any food which is not intended for sale for human consumption.

(2) These Regulations shall not apply in respect of—

(a) any bread brought into Great Britain from an EEA State in which it was lawfully produced and sold;

(b) any flour brought into Great Britain from a member State in which it was lawfully produced and sold;

(c) any bread or flour lawfully produced in another member State and brought into Great Britain from a member State in which it was lawfully sold;

(d) any bread or flour lawfully produced outside the European Community and brought into Great Britain from a member State in which it was in free circulation and lawfully sold,

which is suitably labelled to give the nature of the bread or flour.

(3) For the purposes of paragraph (2) above, “free circulation” has the same meaning as in Article 9.2 of the Treaty establishing the European Community.

Composition of flour

4.—(1) Subject to paragraph (2) below, flour derived from wheat and from no other cereal, whether or not mixed with other flour, shall contain the substances specified in column 1 of Schedule 1 in accordance with the proportions and conditions prescribed in column 2 of that Schedule and with Schedule 2.

(2) The requirements specified for item 1 in column 2 of Schedule 1 shall not apply in the case of—

(a) wholemeal flour,

(b) self-raising flour which has a calcium content of not less than 0.2 per cent, and

(c) wheat malt flour.

(3) The substances specified in items 2-4 of Schedule 1 shall, in the case of—

(a) wholemeal flour, be naturally present in the quantities specified in column 2 of that Schedule, and not added;

(b) flour other than wholemeal, be added where such addition is necessary in accordance with the conditions prescribed in column 2 of that Schedule.

(4) Subject to paragraph (5) below—

(a) no manufacturer of flour shall sell any flour which does not comply with this regulation; and

(b) no importer of flour shall—

(i) import into Great Britain any flour, or

(ii) sell any flour imported by him,

which does not comply with this regulation.

(5) Paragraph (4) above shall not apply as respects any sale or importation into Great Britain of flour for use in the manufacture of communion wafers, matzos, gluten, starch or any concentrated preparation for use for the purpose of facilitating the addition to flour of the substances referred to in Schedule 1.

Additional ingredients

5.—(1) Subject to paragraph (2) below, no person shall use as an ingredient in the preparation of flour or bread any flour bleaching agent or flour treatment agent other than a flour bleaching agent or flour treatment agent specified in an entry in column 1 of Schedule 3.

(2) No person shall use as an ingredient in the preparation of flour or bread any flour bleaching agent or flour treatment agent specified in an entry in column 1 of Schedule 3 unless—

(a) the flour or bread is of a type specified in the related entry in column 2 of that Schedule; and

(b) the quantity of the flour bleaching agent or flour treatment agent used in the flour or bread does not exceed the maximum quantity specified in the related entry in column 3 of that Schedule.

(3) Notwithstanding regulation 17 of the labelling regulations, where a flour treatment agent has been used as an ingredient of any bread an indication of the presence of flour treatment agent shall appear—

(a) in the list of ingredients of the bread as prescribed by regulation 14 of the labelling regulations, where the bread is marked or labelled with a list of ingredients; or

(b) on a label, ticket or notice as prescribed by regulation 36 of the labelling regulations, where by virtue of regulation 23 of the labelling regulations the bread is not marked or labelled with a list of ingredients.

Restrictions on the use of the words ‘wholemeal’ and ‘wheat germ’

6.—(1) There shall not be used in the labelling or advertising of bread, as part of the name of the bread, whether or not qualified by other words—

(a) the word ‘wholemeal’ unless all the flour used as an ingredient in the preparation of the bread is wholemeal;

(b) the word ‘wheat germ’ unless the bread has an added processed wheat germ content of not less than 10 per cent calculated on the dry matter of the bread.

(2) No person shall sell or advertise for sale any bread in contravention of this regulation.

Offences and penalties

7.—(1) If any person contravenes or fails to comply with regulation 4(4), 5 or 6(2) he shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.

(2) Where an offence under these Regulations is committed in Scotland by a Scottish partnership and is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of, a partner, he as well as the partnership shall be guilty of the offence and be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.

Enforcement

8.  Each food authority shall enforce and execute these Regulations in its area.

Defence in relation to exports

9.  In any proceedings for an offence under these Regulations it shall be a defence for the person charged to prove that the food in respect of which the offence is alleged to have been committed was intended for export to a country which has legislation analogous to these Regulations and that the food complies with that legislation.

Application of various sections of the Act

10.  The following provisions of the Act shall apply for the purposes of these Regulations and unless the context otherwise requires any reference in them to the Act or Part thereof shall be construed as a reference to these Regulations—

(a) section 2 (extended meaning of ‘sale' etc.);

(b) section 3 (presumption that food is intended for human consumption);

(c) section 20 (offences due to fault of another person);

(d) section 21 (defence of due diligence) as it applies for the purposes of section 8, 14 or 15;

(e) section 22 (defence of publication in the course of business);

(f) section 30(8) (which relates to documentary evidence);

(g) section 33 (obstruction etc. of officers);

(h) section 35(1) to (3) (punishment of offences) in so far as it relates to offences under section 33(1) and (2) as applied by paragraph (g) above;

(i) section 36 (offences by bodies corporate); and

(j) section 44 (protection of officers acting in good faith).

Amendments

11.  In the labelling regulations in paragraph (1) of regulation 2 (interpretation) in the definition of “the Bread and Flour Regulations” for the date “1995” there shall be substituted the date “1998”.

Revocations

12.  The Regulations specified in column 1 of Schedule 4 are hereby revoked to the extent specified in column 3 of that Schedule.

Jeff Rooker

Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food

20th January 1998

Signed by authority of the Secretary of State for Health

Tessa Jowell

Minister of State for Public Health,

Department of Health

20th January 1998

Signed by authority of the Secretary of State for Wales

Win Griffiths

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Welsh Office

22nd January 1998

Sewel

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Scottish Office

20th January 1998