Since 1997, the manufacturers of novel foods have been required to submit a complete safety dossier before they are allowed to launch these products onto the market. This pre-market safety assessment is an expression of the principle precautionary, a major cornerstone of European food safety policy.
The everyday practice of safety assessments shows that there are three types of novel foods. Firstly there are exotic novel foods which are already being consumed elsewhere in the world, then there are foods that are derived from a genetically modified source, and finally there are foods (also referred to as functional foods) which include specific bio-active ingredients.