The food industry continuously develops new ingredients from traditional food sources, industrial side streams, and entirely new raw materials. Innovative production technologies are also being applied to unlock valuable bioactive compounds and functional properties.
One key question for food business operators is whether an ingredient can be considered a traditional food or falls within the scope of the EU Novel Food Regulation (EU) 2015/2283. Avoiding novel food status is often a key objective for companies although this is not always possible. Finding the right information is essential.
In this webinar, Mari Lyyra, our Regulatory Affairs Manager Food & Feed, and Mari Eskola, our Senior Regulatory Affairs Expert will provide a practical overview of how to assess the regulatory status of a food ingredient and explain the consultation procedure that enables companies to obtain an official determination from the authorities on whether a product is considered a novel food.
In the webinar you will learn:
- how to define regulatory status of a new ingredient in the EU
- how and why to make a formal consultation request
- examples of previous consultation requests; both non-novel and novel foods
Join us online to gain clarity on novel food status assessments and learn how to reduce regulatory uncertainty early in product development. The live webinar was held 22 September 2026. You can download the recording below and watch the webinar on-demand.
Speakers
Mari Lyyra, M.Sc. | Regulatory Affairs Manager, Food and Feed
Mari Lyyra has worked for Medfiles since 2014 and led the Medfiles Food & Feed team in 2019-2025. Currently she is working as Regulatory Affairs Manager. Mari holds an M.Sc. in Public Health, specialising in clinical nutrition, and is a licensed nutritionist. Early in her career, Mari began focusing on food regulatory tasks in the EU. With over 25 years of extensive experience, she is well-versed in regulatory and scientific work related to traditional foods, food supplements, functional foods with health claims, food additives, food enzymes, and innovative ingredients.
Since 1999, Mari has concentrated particularly on novel foods, which has become her primary area of expertise. She has been involved in dozens of favourable novel food projects including evaluation of regulatory status of new ingredients, consultation requests and novel food dossiers in the EU. In addition to EU legislation and novel foods, she has also mastered US food legislation and practices, including GRAS and NDI for last 10 years.
Over the past decade, she has also trained in animal feed regulations and contributed to numerous animal feed projects. Mari brings extensive experience in expert and strategic consulting for clients across various projects in both the EU and the United States. She has authored numerous articles for food journals and contributed to peer-reviewed scientific publications. In recent years, Mari has delivered several lectures on food regulation at various Nordic and international events.
Mari Eskola, Ph.D. | Team leader, Regulatory Science and Reports // Senior Regulatory Affairs Expert, Food and Feed
Mari Eskola joined Medfiles in 2021 and leads the Regulatory Science and Reports Team. Since starting at Medfiles, she has been involved in a wide range of projects relating to food, feed, and cosmetics safety.
Mari has nearly 30 years of broad international expertise in the chemical and regulatory safety of food and feed, acquired across the European Union, national authorities, and industry. At Medfiles, she brings over 15 years’ experience as a regulatory food and feed risk assessor. Mari developed her risk assessment expertise working for 10 years at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), where she conducted regulatory risk assessments of contaminants in food and feed. She also served as Acting and Deputy Head of the EFSA Contaminants Unit. She is a food chemist specialising in analytical chemistry and obtained her PhD in food science in 2002.
In addition, Mari has extensive food and feed research and regulatory experience from several European institutes, including the European Commission Joint Research Centre (EC JRC), the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), Teagasc in Ireland, the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Austria, and the former Finnish Food Safety Authority. She has international experience in project and people management and has authored numerous scientific publications, including many EFSA scientific opinions and risk assessments.
Medfiles novel food services
The Medfiles food regulatory affairs expert team has extensive experience in the EU Novel Food Regulation. The first Novel Food Regulation in the EU came into force in 1997, and Mari Lyyra, Head of the Food & Feed and Cosmetics unit, has followed the development of the Regulation and the related practices ever since. Today, Medfiles’ five regulatory affairs experts are working daily with many kinds of novel food projects, such as regulatory classifications (novel food or not), official consultation requests, novel food gap analyses and novel food applications. Our goal is to guide our clients through all these phases as smoothly as possible.
Over 20 years of practical experience as well as continuously updating our expertise ensure that we are among the leading experts in novel foods in the Nordics and in Northern Europe. Our expertise covers different types of foods, including chemicals, plants, fungi, marine products (such as fish, crustaceans and algae), fats and oils, fibres, grains and microorganisms, including yeast.
Free webinar: EFSA’s new novel food guidance – what to know about the updates
The new novel food guidance related to Regulation (EU) 2015/2283 brings new practices and requirements for companies applying for novel food authorisation. In our practical webinar you will learn what are the major changes of new novel food guidance compared to old guidance.
