Take the UK bottled water regulations, for example: first tabled in 1985, with a full revision in 1999, a reworking in 2007 and four amendments since then. And regulations for each of the four regions. And a set of guidance notes.
To make life more complicated, the European Directive on which they’re based is not entirely straightforward, with references across several other directives. On top of all that, a year ago, the UK coalition government was formed and one of the first things it did was propose significant cuts to government. One department highlighted for closure was the Food Standards Agency (FSA).
In the end the agency remained, but with a reduced remit, and some of its activities were transferred to Defra. One of those activities was bottled water. Over the past few months, there has been a shift of information from the FSA website to Defra, and it seems that, after some initial problems, the provision of information is improving.
So, against a backdrop of complicated regulation and changing government, how can bottled water manufacturers best understand what’s going on?
We’re giving a free webinar on 26 May that aims to give a plain language view of the bottled water regulations. The webinar will be at 14:00 BST. More details can be found here.
Dr Ric Horobin is water & environment director at Zenith International. You can contact him here or view his FoodBev.com profile here.
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