Minutes of the 31st January 2023 meeting - SFWG

Joint Expert Group on Additives, Enzymes and other Regulated Products Smoke Flavouring Working Group (AEJEG SFWG)  

Meeting of the Committee at 10:00 on Tuesday 31st of January 2023 via Microsoft Teams 

Contents 

Declaration of interest(s) 

1. No new conflict of interests were declared. 

Item 1: Welcome and apologies  

2. The Chair welcomed AEJEG Members and other attendees.  

3. Apologies were received from Dr Olwenn Martin and Dr Qasim Chaudhry who were unable to attend the morning session. Dr Ruth Morse participated in the meeting until 15:00PM. 

Item 2: Matters arising 

4. The Secretariat informed Members of updates to several points previously raised in past Smoke Flavouring AEJEG meetings. The questions were related to the regulation surrounding the raw materials (wood) for the production of the primary product, product specifications and Requests for Information (RFI) questions to be sent to applicants.  

Item 3: RP1615 Application for the renewal of smoke flavouring primary product “proFagus R716” (Reserved) 

5. The Group were last introduced to Regulated Products application RP1615 on their 27th of January 2023 meeting. This discussion was held as a continuation of their assessment. 

6. Members agreed that the information provided at the time by the applicant was insufficient to allow for conclusion. The AEJEG considered that further, more in depth evaluation of the data would be required to fully assess the information. A number of areas were identified, where further information was needed. These were in particular with regards to the analytical information provided, information on stability, batch-to-batch variability, exposure and toxicity. Based on the above information, it was agreed that the Secretariat would prepare questions which would be circulated to the AEJEG, prior to being included in an RFI letter to be sent to the Applicant. The item would be revisited in the following meeting to finalise discussions.  

Item 4: Any other business (AOB) 

7. Members enquired when response(s) to the issued RFI letters were to be expected, so that there is adequate time to allow members to fully assess the additional data provided. The Secretariat informed Members that the expected return dates are provided by Applicants as part of the acknowledgement of RFI, and this would be communicated to Members, so the dates of additional meetings would be scheduled around the reply dates. 

8. The Secretariat advised Members they would start receiving RFI questions for final review/clearance in the following weeks; however, no RFI’s would be sent until all smoke flavouring applications had been viewed by the AEJEG in order to ensure that discussion and identification of recurring issues across all applications would be completed prior to finalising RFIs.  

9. Members questioned if there were plans for any physical in person meetings, with all Members agreeing this would be a useful addition and would allow for improvements in the dynamics of the group, and better understanding of each Member’s expertise. The Secretariat informed Members the request would be conveyed to the Admin Team, and any further information shared with Members when available.  

Closing Remarks  

10. Members were reminded that the next AEJEG meeting on Smoke Flavourings would take place online via Microsoft Teams on Tuesday 14th of February 2023 at 10:00AM.