Bovine and Ovine Tissues: Use in Nutritional Supplements (Hansard, 2 May 2000)

§ Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

There are no specific compositional rules on food supplements and no prior approval system exists to assess their composition. Nutritional supplements, like other foods, are subject to the general provisions of the Food Safety Act 1990 which make it an offence to sell food which is injurious to health. Certain bovine and ovine tissues are however covered by the controls on specified risk material, the purpose of which is to ensure that no food containing such material may be sold for human consumption in the United Kingdom. Specified risk material includes the brain and spleen of all sheep and the spinal cord and tonsils of cattle slaughtered in the UK aged over six months and the thymus and intestines of all cattle slaughtered in the UK for human consumption.