The Court of Justice of the European Union published a judgment on 24 March 2022 (C-533/20) on the labelling of vitamins added to foodstuffs in the list of ingredients. A press release was also issued regarding this judgment.

According to this judgment, the list of ingredients of a foodstuff containing an added vitamin:

– must include mandatorily the generic name of the vitamin (examples: “Vitamin A“, “Vitamin D”, as in the nutrition declaration)

– does not have to include mandatorily the specific vitamin formulation (chemical form) used (example: “retinyl acetate” which is an authorized form of vitamin A).

Concretely, the indication of the chemical form of the vitamin in the list of ingredients is not mandatory, however the chemical form can be indicated in a voluntary manner in addition to the generic name of the vitamin which is mandatory. This is a very common practice particularly in the food supplements sector, information on these chemical forms being most often required during national notifications of food supplements.