14 February 2022

The National Food Authority (NFA) and Food Safety Project hosted on Friday, February 11th 2022, the first of three training workshops on food labelling as part of the “Learn to Read your Food” awareness campaign. The event in Durres was attended by NFA inspectors from Tirana, Durres Elbasan, Korça and was focused on providing an overview of mandatory labelling requirements for prepacked food and Nutrition and Health Claims Legislation.

Albanian Government Decision No. 434 ‘On Food Labelling and Consumer Information’ is approximated to European Union Law on provision of food information to consumers (EU Regulation 1169/2011).

Vanessa Cooling, Project Team Leader presented information on Nutrition and Health Claims Legislation and Elaine Madden, Food Safety Specialist from the Food Safety Project presented an overview of mandatory labelling requirements. Romeo Boçi from NFA presented examples to highlight common labelling issues in Albania and the workshop also included practical exercises. During an open discussion the inspectors shared experience and views on assessing food labels.

NFA has worked closely with the Food Safety Project on adapting a booklet that gives key information on labelling requirements to help food business operators comply with their legal obligations. The booklet can be downloaded from: https://aku.gov.al/botime-ndergjegjesuese/

Funded by the European Union, the project "Support for Food Safety, Veterinary and Phytosanitary Standards" is being implemented by a group led by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI). The implementing group also includes the Finnish Food Authority, the Irish Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Creative Business Solutions (CBS) in Albania.