Regions, Agriculture and Fisheries, UKRep
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
King Charles Street
London SW1A 2AH
Website: https://www.gov.uk
Katharina Klein
Corporate Europe Observatory
Rue d’Edimbourg 26
1050 Bruxelles
Belgium
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxx.xxx 08 February 2016
Dear Ms Klein
Your Freedom Of Information Request: 1111-15
I am writing in response to your request for information of 11 November 2015. This is further
to our public interest test notification letters of 9 December 2015 and 11 January 2016. In
your request you asked;
Under UK freedom of information rules, I request a list of meetings with detailed minutes or
any other reports of such meetings between members of the UK Permanent Representation
and the third parties listed below in which the health impacts of sugar intake, the
reformulation and/ or labelling of sugar-sweetened products and/ or the drop of the sugar
quotas in the EU was discussed.
- American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union (AmCham EU)
- the World Health Organisation (WHO)
- ILSI - International Life Sciences Institute
- FoodDrinkEurope (incl. members/ sectors/ companies)
- WSRO - World Sugar Research Organisation
- IFBA - International Food & Beverage Alliance
- CIUS - Committee of the European Sugar Users
- UNESDA - Union of European Beverages Associations
- EUFIC European Food Information Council
- EUROGLACES - European Ice Cream Association
- CAOBISCO - Association of the Chocolate, Biscuit & Confectionery Industries of Europe
- PROFEL - European Association of Fruit and Vegetable Processors
- FEDIMA - European Federation of manufacturers and suppliers of ingredients to the
Bakery, Confectionery and Patisserie Industries
- ESRA - European Sugar Refineries Association
- CIBE - International Confederation of European Beet Growers
- EFFAT - European Federation of Food, Agriculture and Tourism Trade Unions
- ASSUC - European Association of Sugar Traders
- Suedzucker AG
- Coca-Cola Company
- Coca-Cola Enterprises Europe Ltd
- PepsiCo Europe
- Kellogg Company
- Nestlé S.A.
- T&L Sugars Limited
- Mondalez Europe GmbH
- Cargill
The timeframe of my request is between 01 November 2014 and today.
As set out in the previous letters, I can confirm that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
does hold information falling within the terms of your request.
The FOI Act obliges us to respond to requests promptly, and in any case no later than 20
working days after receiving your request. However, when a qualified exemption applies to
the information and the public interest test is engaged, the Act allows the time for response
to be longer than 20 working days, and a full response must be provided within such time as
is reasonable in all circumstances of the case. We do, of course, aim to make all decisions
within 20 working days, including in cases where we need to consider where the public
interest lies in respect of a request for exempt information. In this case, however, we have
not yet reached a decision on where the balance of the public interest lies.
In your case we estimate that it will take an additional
20 days to take a decision on where
the balance of the public interest lies. Therefore, we plan to let you have a response by
7 March 2016. If it appears that it will take longer than this to reach a conclusion, we will
keep you informed.
The specific exemptions which apply in relation to your request are: section 27 –
International relations, section 35 – Formulation of governmental policy and section 43 –
Commercial interests.
If you are unhappy with the service you are receiving and wish to make a complaint, please
write to the FOI and DPA Team, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Room K4.14, King
Charles Street, London, SW1A 2AH. E-mail:
xxxxxxx.xxx@xxx.xxx.xx. You have 40 working
days to do so from the date of this letter.
If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint, you may then apply directly to the
Information Commissioner for a decision. Generally, the Information Commissioner cannot
make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints procedure provided by the FCO.
The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information Commissioner's Office,
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.
Please contact me if you have any queries about this letter.
Yours sincerely,
Regions, Agriculture and Fisheries Section, UKRep
We keep and use information in line with the Data Protection Act 1998. We may release this personal information to other UK
government departments and public authorities.
