Urgent Proposal P1054 was prepared to amend the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code to prohibit the retail sale of pure and highly concentrated caffeine food products.
FSANZ prepared the Proposal as an emergency interim response under its urgent legislative provisions following its review and report to Australian Government Ministers in August 2019.
The Ministerial Report and the Initial Consideration Report found pure and highly concentrated caffeine food products posed an immediate and acute risk to consumers.
FSANZ has approved the prohibition of the retail sale of foods in which total caffeine is present in a concentration of 5% or more (if the food is a solid or semi-solid food) or 1% or more (if the food is a liquid food). This prohibition came into force on 12 December 2019.
The amendment to Standard 1.1.1 subsection 1.1.1 - 10(5) of the Code cannot - and does not - itself constitute a broad permission for the purposes of the Code to add caffeine to all foods (e.g., for the purposes of the prohibitions imposed by other paragraphs in subsection 1.1.1 - 10(5) or by subsection 1.1.1 - 10(6)).
Existing permissions in the Code for the addition of caffeine to food (i.e. in cola type drinks as a food additive and to caffeinated energy drinks) remain in effect, with the maximum permitted thresholds prescribed in the Code for these specific foods still applicable.
FSANZ had 12 months to undertake a full assessment of the prohibition and decide whether to confirm, reject or amend the approved variation.
As part of this assessment FSANZ called for submissions to help seek views on whether to reaffirm the variation or to prepare a proposal to amend or repeal the variation.
After considering all submissions received, the FSANZ Board approved a decision to prepare Proposal P1056 - Caffeine Review on 15 December 2020 to review the permissions for caffeine in sports foods and general foods and consider the risk it pses to sensitive sub-populations.
The aproved variation remains in place until the completion of the new proposal.
Amendment Report - 15 December 2020 (PDF 1354 kb) | (Word 357 kb)
Submissions (Zip 7.1 mb)
Call for submissions 28 July 2020 (PDF 279 kb) | (Word 158 kb)
Supporting document 1 - Risk and technical assessment (PDF 911 kb) | (Word 101 kb
Final Consideration Report (PDF 1.28 mb) | (Word 210 kb)
Submissions (Zip 10 mb)
Call for submissions - 1 November 2019 (PDF 1.1 mb) | (Word 173 kb)
Administrative Assessment Report - 23 September 2019 (PDF 217 kb) | (Word 61 kb)
Declaration of Urgency - 23 September 2019 (PDF 142 kb)