Welcome to the Retail, Food & Hospitality Regulatory & EU round-up. Week ending 06 July 2025

This week’s regulatory developments in order of importance, so you can ensure you're up to date with the latest changes impacting your business. 

Retail, Food & Hospitality updates

Government launch 10-year health plan with mandatory food standard proposal: The Department of Health and Social Care has launched a ten-year health plan for England, ‘Fit for the future’ aiming to improve the NHS through radical shifts from hospital to community, analogue to digital and sickness to prevention. Under the sickness to prevention strand the Government has committed to restrict junk food advertising targeted at children, ban the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to under 16-year-olds, reform the soft drinks industry levy to drive reformulation, and to introduce mandatory health food sales reporting for all large companies in the food sector using the reporting to set new mandatory targets on the average healthiness of sales. To tackle harmful alcohol consumption new standards for alcohol labelling are proposed and support for further growth in the no- and low-alcohol market Publication >  Speech >  News >  UK Hospitality – 10 year health plan response > Food and Drink Federation > Drinkaware > Sustain > Chartered Institute of Environmental Health > British Beer and Pub Association > UK Hospitality – healthy food standard reponse > Sustain >

Consultation launched on draft guidance on transparency of online pricing: The Competition and Markets Authority has launched draft guidance for businesses on pricing transparency provisions of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. The draft guidance sets out:

• what an invitation to purchase is
• what pricing information needs to be included in an invitation to purchase (and what to avoid including ‘drip’ and ‘partitioned’ pricing)
• what traders need to do to ensure they are complying with the new requirements to provide the total price of the product in their invitations to purchase, and what they need to do instead if this is not possible
• how the new requirements apply to specific types of charges and pricing practices and the steps that traders can take to ensure they are complying with the new requirements

Responses are required by 24^th September. View >

Advertising Standards Authority rulings:

• The ASA has upheld a complaint against Mondelez T/A Cadbury’s in respect of a radio advertisement for a chocolate bar which included the statement ‘Only 91 Calories’. The ASA ruled that this was a comparative energy reduction claim and that the product must be 30% lower in energy than similar products for which no claim is being made. View >
• The ASA found that a price reduction claim for a product featured on the Wowcher website was incorrect as the merchant had reduced its own selling price for the product. Because Wowcher allowed third-party merchants to advertise offers on their website, the ASA considered that Wowcher were responsible for ensuring that those offers represented a genuine saving and were thus in breach of the advertising codes. View >

EU updates

EU Council: Welcomes Danish EU Presidency: View >

EU Commission launch review of Digital Markets Act 2025: The Commission is required to conduct a review of the DMA by 3 May 2026, and subsequently every three years. It has launched a call for views by 24^th September. View >

EU Regulations:

• Setting maximum residue limits for plant protection products: amidosulfuron, azoxystrobin, hexythiazox, isoxaben, picloram, propamocarb, sodium silver thiosulfate, and tefluthrin >
• Authorising novel food: Dipteryx alata Vogel/Baru seeds >
• Approving biocide: 2-methyl-2,3-dihydro-1,2-thiazol-3-0ne hydrochloride >

European Food Safety Authority: Announce the nomination of Nikolaus Kriz as Executive Director. View >

European Food Safety Authority opinions:

• Modification of maximum residue levels. aclonifen >
• Peer review of pesticide risk assessment. halosulfuron-methyl >

Developments to watch

Food Standards Agency: Publish detailed guidance on definition of Mechanically separated meat.    View >

Department for Business and Trade: Publish roadmap for implementation of Employment Rights Bill and launch review of parental leave. View >  View >  British Retail Consortium >   View >

Food Standards Scotland: Call for urgent and bolder action to improve Scotland’s diet and health calling for more joining up as a UK approach. View >

Food Standards Agency: Publish guidance for businesses with products of the CBD product public list. The guidance encourages businesses to meet a CBD provisional acceptable daily intake (ADI) of 10 mg per day of CBD (equivalent to 0.15 mg/kg of body weight per day of CBD for a 70kg adult) and the THC safe upper limit of 0.07 mg THC per day (equivalent to 1 µg/kg of body weight per day of THC for a 70kg adult). View >

Department for Science, Innovation and Technology: Publish statement to parliament on its strategic priorities for OFCOM enforcement of the Online Safety Act. View >

Office for the UK Internal Market: Publish update on regulatory developments. View >

For your information

Non-food product safety alerts: Office for Product Safety and Standards > EU Safety Gate >  US Consumer Product Safety Commission >

DEFRA: Publish annual pesticides in food report 2003. View >

HSE: Publish report on workplace fatalities for 2024-2025. View >

Food Standards Scotland: Issue statement on. Sea lice in Salmon. View >

Department for Science, Innovation and Technology: Announce smarter Regulation initiative on Financial Tech. View >

Portman group: Publish rulings on the packaging of two alcoholic products. View > View >

Appointments:

• David Hill, Interim Permanent Secretary, DEFRA. View >
• Emran Mian, Permanent Secretary, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. View >