Food law at your fingertips

For over 40 years, Campden BRI’s ‘Food Law Notes’ has provided thousands of readers with detailed information about the UK and European legislation controlling food production and marketing via several hundred pages in printed book format. Now for the first time ever, subscribers will have access to a new electronic version, known as Electronic Food Law Notes or eFLaN.

Written by Campden BRI’s expert and highly-experienced Food Law Advisers, eFLaN will provide food industry professionals including companies and enforcement authorities with fast and accurate web access to almost all pieces of relevant food legislation, along with many related guidance documents at the touch of a button.

In the same easy-to-read style as the hard copy format, eFLaN will deliver an instant, inexpensive and reliable way for subscribers to understand and keep up-to-date with legal requirements and provide guidance on how to interpret complex controls.

With online access available to all employees of subscribing companies, eFLaN is the ultimate portable reference guide on legislation for the food industry, available on any device with an internet connection from Blackberries, through laptops to desktops.

Users will benefit not only from guidance notes on specific legislation, written in layman’s terms, but eFLaN also includes hyperlinks to all source documents, ensuring subscribers are just a click away from the full text of the legislation itself, fully satisfying the BRC Technical Standard requirement for access to relevant legislation. Useful links from related agencies such as government departments and trade associations are also included.

In addition, eFLaN has an effective search facility enabling users to hone in on specific topics or terms quickly and efficiently, helping to save precious time and resources.

Any legislative updates or changes will be made readily accessible to users quickly online – negating the need for Campden BRI to publish and distribute hundreds of pages of revised text with companies having to manage version control of hard copies.

John Hammond, Head of Information and Legislation at Campden BRI, said: “eFLaN is the result of extensive research into exactly what food industry professionals are looking for when it comes to sourcing timely and accurate information on UK and European legislative requirements. The project portrays Campden BRI at its best – bringing together our highly experienced legal experts, technical computing know-how and our website developers – to deliver a professional, first-class product that satisfies industry needs.

“The overwhelming majority of users (99%) wanted links to original source documents included in eFLaN and 88% requested that it is divided into separate sections in ‘print preview’ format. Our new Electronic Food Law Notes have been developed with these specific requirements in mind.

“eFLaN is relevant not just for food companies themselves but is an extremely valuable online tool for professionals working in enforcement bodies such as Trading Standards and Environmental Health, providing fast, accurate, reliable and straightforward access to the very latest legislative developments as they happen.”

Campden BRI is offering a free on-line trial period to enable potential new users to see for themselves the significant benefits of subscribing to eFLaN. To find out more information and to request a free trial, please email: [email protected].