Aloe vera wins legal battle in Europe; ban on its use in food overturned

After three and a half years of litigation, the General Court of the European Union finally annulled the ban on the use of Aloe Vera preparations as a food input. This ban had been imposed by the European Commission in March 2021 and was based on a scientific opinion of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) issued in 2017, which stated that the use of aloe vera extracts was harmful to health. This stigma was now dismissed by the court as it found no evidence of risks to the consumer in the files. In this sense, the legal authorities understood that it was an excess, due to the Commission limiting the production of all those botanical species that contained hydroxyanthracene derivatives (HAD), among which were aloe vera extracts. The decision had a great impact on the nutrition and nutricosmetic industries. “The Commission has no power to ban botanical preparations under this regulation and the court agreed that the Commission had overstepped its bounds,” said Brian Kelly, a ...