On Tuesday 2 May, the European Commission presented a delegated regulation on production rules for organic sea salt and other organic salts food and feed.
Salt is not an agricultural product and can be obtained by different methods. The Commission specifies the methods that can be used to produce organic sea salt.
This text, submitted for consultation to the EU Council and the European Parliament, aims to: - ban processing methods that reconstitute the previous solid form after artificial dissolution, such as recrystallisation; - prohibit certain production and preparation methods used to produce organic salt in order to protect the environment and reduce the use of non-renewable energy.
The proposed regulation prohibits, for example, the extraction of rock salt using explosives, solution mining or the artificial dissolution of rock salt on the surface, or the upgrading of salt by flotation and electrostatic separation.
Exemption. In order to allow for the adaptation of operators who have developed their economic activity in the context of evaporation techniques and organic salt drying processes using energy produced from non-renewable sources, the operators concerned should be allowed to continue to use energy produced from non-renewable sources for these techniques and processes for a period of 2 years from the date of entry into force of the regulation.
Iodine and ingredients of agricultural origin, such as herbs, can be added to salt. Salt should only be labelled as organic when all added ingredients of agricultural origin are organic. Specific labelling rules should therefore be established for organic salt.
As of 1 January 2022, sea salt and other salts for food and feed use are included in the scope of the EU organic production rules (see EUROPE 13149/10).
Link to the text: https://aeur.eu/f/6nf (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)