What is EURRECA all about?
Consumers are probably familiar with the European Commission’s recommendations for vitamins and minerals because they have been used for labelling purposes since 1992 to declare the amounts of micronutrients in a food (e.g. 30% of the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) of Vitamin C in 100g food). However, nutrient recommendations also have wider food and nutrition policy applications such as planning food supplies and assessing the nutritional adequacy of population groups. For these purposes most countries tend to use their own nationally derived values which can vary considerably.
In 2005 the European Commission asked the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to advise on values for micronutrient recommendations, after first advising on existing values for energy, macronutrients and dietary fibre. The work on micronutrients will be initiated in 2008.
In the light of this mandate, the EURRECA Network of Excellence, which started in 2007 and will continue until the end of 2011, has an excellent opportunity to develop tools which should help EFSA, and other panels, charged with developing values for micronutrient recommendations, to work on their task.
The EURRECA Roadmap (as depicted in Fig. 1 below) will allow EURRECA to achieve its overall goal of producing an evidence based toolkit to help others to develop quality assured and aligned nutrient recommendations across Europe. The fluid nature of the Roadmap means that the early EURRECA activities will identify barriers which were apparent when previous panels developed recommendations. This will help to prioritise the most useful components of the toolkit; later activities will then develop and refine them. The toolkit is expected to consist of a series of consensus criteria out of which ‘gold standard’ methods and, in some cases, decision trees will be developed.
Thus the EURRECA Network, with its unique input from scientists, consumer experts and industry, will contribute to the general framework of nutrition and food policy in its widest context.
Fig 1. The EURRECA Roadmap – how EURRECA is working & its objectives:
The EURRECA Network of Excellence addresses variation in European micronutrient recommendations
Individual countries in Europe convene expert panels and review their national guidance on recommendations for micronutrients at different times, which means they are not working with the same or most up-to-date scientific information. Relatively small and select groups of experts are usually involved in this process.
Additionally, different countries use different methods to determine their national requirements and different concepts to express these recommendations. For example, some nations group all adults together and provide one recommendation for all; others provide separate recommendations for men and women. Age groupings for babies and children also vary.
The result? Differing national recommendations and confusion for policy-makers, health professionals and consumers.
Folic acid is a good example of wide variation in recommendations in official guidance, due mainly in this instance to the fact that scientific knowledge on this micronutrient has increased dramatically in recent years.
EURRECA!
The EURRECA (EURopean micronutrient RECommendations Aligned) Network of Excellence has been established to address these discrepancies and work towards a framework of advice on micronutrients to better inform policy-makers as they formulate precise recommendations.
Funded by the European Commission, the Network is made up of 34 partners based in 17 countries, drawn not only from nutrition science but also from industry, consumer groups, national nutrition societies and the health professions.
Priorities and populations
Initial work within the Network has identified the priority micronutrients on which to concentrate to include folic acid, Vitamin D and iron. EURRECA's focus will be on the most vulnerable groups of the European population such as the older generations, pregnant and lactating women, children, those on low incomes and migrant populations.
EURRECA will not only consider nutrition science advice but also policy implications and applications that take into account national social, cultural and ethical differences. The aim is to produce Europe-wide scientific consensus on the evidence on which micronutrient recommendations can be used, enabling such evidence to be converted rapidly, conveniently and appropriately into recommendations published in national policy documents.
'Best practice' tool kit
As EURRECA's work progresses, a comprehensive 'tool kit' will be produced of 'best practice' guidance that will lead to a robust scientific base for assessing micronutrient requirements and for devising nutrient recommendations.
Decisions on precise components of the tool-kit are being made in the early phases of the project but are likely to include:
- agreed ways of obtaining and using information on diets
- agreement on the factors that account for variations in food and nutrient intake between individuals
- agreement on how to decide the micronutrient status of individuals and how best to measure that status
- a Code of Practice on how best to involve consumers in the development of recommendations and guidelines
- a Code of Practice on how such recommendations can be used by companies, policy-makers and health professionals for the benefit of consumers
- training materials on developing and disseminating recommendations most effectively to the widest possible audience.
Such a tool kit will help overcome fragmentation and provide a framework and process through which practical advice can be updated quickly and effectively as new information becomes available.
Collaboration with consumers in mind
EURRECA will be supporting the work of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the agency charged with developing European-wide recommendations for micronutrients. Close consultation has already been established between the two organisations with collaborative work to follow.
Consumers across Europe have a right of access to the best nutritional information available so that they can make informed choices about what they eat, wherever they live, at whatever stage of life and their own personal circumstances.
EURRECA's task is to help establish a process that will enable European and national policy-makers and health professionals react to emerging scientific evidence and get the best nutrition advice to consumers as quickly as they can.
The EURRECA Network of Excellence does not under-estimate the scope of the task ahead. Through its wide collaboration with European and national nutrition societies, research and academic institutions, professional organisations, the food industry and consumer groups, EURRECA will make a real difference now and in the future.
"EURRECA - EURopean RECommendations Aligned - Network of Excellence" is funded by the European Commission (2007 - 2011), contract number FP6 036196-2 (FOOD) and is co-ordinated by ILSI Europe.
