Abstract

The implementation of health claims legislation in the European Union has involved a steep learning curve foreveryone. While a few years ago many food companies were quite enthusiastic about the ideas of the easier circulation ofgoods within the community and protecting the consumer from misleading claims, the picture today is no longer so clear.Due to the high standards needed for the scientific substantiation of health claims, many currently used health claims willsoon be banned from the market. Scores of them are indeed not very supported, but at least some of them might be correct, albeit not sufficiently substantiated. It is therefore very important for the industry to learn from the existing evaluations to enable better research in this area and to improve the chances of success of following applications. Thispaper focuses on the experiences of existing evaluations, leading to a better outcome not only for the industry but also forconsumers.