Codex Committee on Food Additives (CCFA)

About CCFA

The importance of food additives to the Codex Alimentarius is reflected in the fact that the first Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) meeting in 1963 took place in combination with the already planned Joint FAO/WHO Conference on Food Additives. The Codex committee responsible for this issue was the Codex Committee on Food Additives but at this time, that Committee was also responsible for contaminants and would be renamed in 1987 as the Codex Committee for Food Additives and Contaminants (CCFAC). CCFAC did not split into separate committees until 2006. Since then, CCFA has been hosted by China.

The crucial importance of CCFAC’s work was summarized at the 1962 FAO/WHO meeting establishing Codex: “Food additives enter into practically all processed foods, with the result that disagreement among countries as to which may be used can have the effect of making many laboriously agreed standards of composition and labelling of little practical value in protecting the consumer’s health and in promoting international trade”.

The General standard for food additives (GFSA, CXS 192-1995) sets out the food additives recognized as suitable for use in foods.