Update: FSA issues final call for CBD products to be added to the public list

Businesses have until 26 May 2022 to submit evidence that their products are linked to a credible application and were on the market before February 2020.

Rebecca Sudworth, Director of Policy, FSA said:

‘Our announcement on 31 March that the CBD public list should be used to help prioritise efforts to enforce the  novel food regulations has prompted a number of companies to come forward with new evidence linking large numbers of individual products to applications. We are reviewing this new evidence to assess whether these products meet the criteria to be added to the list.

‘This is an unexpected development as this product information should have been provided to us much earlier in the process. To support businesses to achieve compliance for their products, we are therefore making one final call for evidence from businesses to link their products to credible applications. Any businesses that have not already done so must send this evidence to us as soon as possible, but no later than 26 May for consideration.

‘We aim to update the public list twice before 30 June, with the first update due very shortly. After 30 June, no new products will be added. The only changes made after this will be to reflect changes to the status of products in our novel foods authorisation process.

‘The CBD business is a large and complex market, where currently no products on sale have formally been through the necessary safety assessment. The FSA continues to take a proportionate and pragmatic approach to bringing this huge range of products towards compliance. There will continue to be a degree of change in the short term as the process continues. Certainty will only come after authorisation of CBD applications is achieved.’

Only CBD food products which meet the following criteria can be added to the public list:

• they were on the market at the time of our announcement on CBD (13 February 2020)
• we received an authorisation application for the products by 31 March 2021
• we validated the application or agreed that it is sufficiently progressing towards validation

We are continuing to accept CBD novel food applications, but products connected to these applications should not be put on sale until they have completed the process and secured authorisation.

Local authorities and retailers can contact the FSA to verify if products not on the list are due to be added. Currently, no CBD products have been authorised for sale in the UK, and validated applications will now move on to a full scientific risk assessment.