A bunch of hemp business stakeholders has formally requested the UK’s Meals Requirements Company (FSA) to make clear whether or not whole-plant hemp extracts needs to be handled as novel meals, arguing that they’ve a protracted historical past of secure use and may fall underneath normal meals regulation. The request challenges the regulator’s long-standing place and requires a realignment with historic proof.
The request, created by marketing consultant The Hemp Hound Company, was undersigned by a gaggle of stakeholders. Often called an Article 4 submitting, it requested the FSA to acknowledge that full-spectrum and broad-spectrum extracts produced by conventional strategies equivalent to chilly urgent, tincturing, and ethanol extraction had a well-documented historical past of use earlier than the Could 1997 deadline that defines novel meals.
Beneath UK and European meals regulation, firms can ask regulators to resolve whether or not a product needs to be handled as a “novel meals” by an Article 4 submitting. Such requests are primarily clarification instances: if a product is deemed non-novel, it may be bought underneath regular meals guidelines; whether it is dominated novel, it should endure a prolonged and dear authorization course of earlier than it may be positioned in the marketplace.
Historic use cited
The submitting pointed to European Fee and UK data exhibiting hemp flowers had been utilized in teas, brewing, and flavorings, and that hemp extract drinks had been lawfully traded in 1997. Meals not consumed in Europe previous to 1997 are thought-about new or “novel” meals, and should acquire approval from the European Meals Security Authority to be bought. Within the UK, the Meals Requirements Company (FSA) nonetheless makes use of this mechanism after Brexit, for the reason that guidelines had been carried over into home regulation.
“CBD didn’t instantly seem within the final 10 years. It has at all times been a pure constituent of hemp meals,” the submission mentioned.
It argued that CBD-rich hemp oils made with conventional processes usually are not new meals however established ones. “Hemp oil which comprises CBD and is produced by chilly urgent has a historical past of consumption,” the authors wrote, including that proof from meals, drinks, and natural preparations all supported this conclusion.
Entire-plant vs isolates
The submission drew a distinction between whole-plant derivatives and purified cannabinoid isolates. Whereas isolates and artificial CBD might correctly fall underneath novel meals and drug-law frameworks, the authors mentioned whole-plant merchandise with lower than 0.2% THC ought to stay underneath normal meals regulation.
“Selective extracts like isolates are a unique class altogether,” the paper famous. “Unselective extracts equivalent to cold-press oils or tinctures protect the pure steadiness of the plant and fall inside conventional meals processes.”
Critique of THC limits
The Article 4 doc additionally challenged the FSA’s present 50-microgram-per-serving cap on THC in meals, calling it arbitrary and unsupported by meals regulation. “This restrict has no foundation in science or proportionality,” the submission argued. As a substitute, it pointed to a 2025 advisory committee discovering that 1 microgram per kilogram of physique weight per day was a proportionate threshold.
The authors urged regulators to align UK coverage with jurisdictions equivalent to Switzerland, Canada, and america, the place whole-plant hemp oils usually are not handled as novel meals.
Name for readability
The submission requested the FSA to:
- Formally acknowledge whole-plant hemp oils as non-novel meals.
- Withdraw the present THC per-serving restrict.
- Publish clear definitions separating seed oils, whole-plant extracts, and isolates.
- Set up clear session with business.
“Hemp’s meals historical past is plain, but companies are being handled as if they’re dealing with managed medicine,” the authors mentioned. “That is neither lawful nor truthful.”
A broader critique
In parallel, a brand new white paper from The Hemp Hound founder Cefyn Jones took a wider view of the regulatory atmosphere. Titled Shifting the Goalposts, it argued that the FSA, underneath strain from the House Workplace, blurred the road between meals regulation and drug regulation.
“The House Workplace has asserted possession of cannabinoids past its correct remit, extending drug regulation into the area of meals regulation,” Jones wrote. He mentioned this amounted to regulatory overreach, noting that case regulation such because the Kanavape ruling confirmed hemp with lower than 0.2% THC was not a narcotic.
The paper additionally raised issues about conflicts of curiosity, pointing to connections between authorities advisory panels and GW Prescribed drugs, developer of the prescription CBD medication Epidiolex. “This alignment has not enhanced public security, however as a substitute narrowed the market in ways in which serve a dominant company curiosity,” Jones argued.
What comes subsequent
Trade stakeholders mentioned the Article 4 submission supplied regulators a path to revive consistency and to deliver the UK according to worldwide follow. In contrast, the white paper urged scrutiny of how drug regulation has been utilized to meals and warned that enforcement actions since 2018 could also be legally unsound if House Workplace affect exceeded its remit.
Peter Reynolds, Chairman of the advocacy group CLEAR, founding father of the CannaPro commerce affiliation, and a former Director of the Hashish Trades Affiliation, mentioned the FSA’s dealing with of CBD has already devastated the UK market. He recalled that whole-plant extracts “turned enormously in style with British folks” a few decade in the past, providing secure and efficient dietary supplements, earlier than regulators imposed a “bureaucratic course of” underneath novel meals guidelines. He mentioned the consequence has been the closure of lots of of companies, the lack of hundreds of jobs, and the removing of many helpful full-spectrum merchandise, leaving primarily “ineffective” CBD isolate oils in the marketplace.
Blaming Huge Pharma
Reynolds argued that pharmaceutical pursuits and massive enterprise pushed for tighter controls as a result of they had been “alarmed that they had been lacking out,” and he welcomed the Article 4 submitting as the correct authorized course of to reverse what he known as the FSA’s “warfare on CBD.”
The FSA has not but indicated whether or not it’ll rethink its place. Advocates mentioned readability is urgently wanted to resolve uncertainty that has left firms in limbo. “The underside line is that hemp is a meals,” the submission concluded. “Any regulatory framework that ignores this easy truth will proceed to distort the market and undermine truthful competitors.”
FSA’s central function
After CBD was designated a “novel meals” in 2019, the UK’s Meals Requirements Company (FSA) and Meals Requirements Scotland (FSS) have seen many firms’ purposes transfer by a number of phases: first validation (“awaiting proof”), then security evaluation, then risk-management assessment, and eventually ministerial authorisation. As of mid-2025, there are about 11,500 CBD meals merchandise listed on the FSA’s Public Listing, that are linked to purposes which are progressing or underneath assessment.
Signatories to the Article 4 submission embrace Allworld Merchandise, Huge Chief Hemp, Bnatural, Brown’s CBD, CBD Brother, CBD One, CBD-UK, Crop England, Pleased Hemper, Hempen Natural, Jersey Hemp, Naturally Pure Lab, Naturecan, Orange County, Ortis Wellbeing, and Undertaking Forty8.
