The Food Standards Agency’s September 2026 Board paper marks an important point in the long-running CBD novel foods process. For the first time, the FSA is recommending that three high-purity CBD applications, RP7, RP350 and RP427, should be presented to Ministers for authorisation. 

That is significant, but it is not the same as saying the UK CBD market has finally reached regulatory certainty.

The three applications are not yet authorised, the scientific position remains contested, the Public List is still an interim enforcement mechanism, and the proposed UK-EU SPS Agreement could fundamentally alter the value of any GB authorisation granted now.

What is actually being proposed?

The three applications concern CBD products of at least 98 per cent purity. RP7 is synthetic CBD, while RP350 and RP427 are CBD isolates. The FSA says they have received positive safety opinions and were considered safe under their proposed conditions of use. Ministers in England and Wales will make the final decision on whether they are authorised.

Approximately 3,000 products on the CBD Public List are linked to these three applications, so any eventual authorisation would have a significant effect on the existing market.

However, the wording used by the FSA is important. These products are considered safe only within specific conditions. The proposed maximum intake remains 10 mg CBD per day, with warnings for under-18s, pregnant and breastfeeding women, those trying to conceive, people taking medication and those who are immunosuppressed. Tight specifications are also proposed for delta-9-THC and other controlled cannabinoids.

This is therefore a managed risk decision, not a general declaration that CBD is free from safety concerns.

The 10 mg position is looking increasingly isolated

The most difficult scientific issue is the growing divergence between the UK and European positions.

The FSA continues to support a provisional acceptable daily intake of 10 mg CBD per day. EFSA, by contrast, published an updated position in February 2026 setting a provisional safe level of 0.0275 mg per kilogram of body weight per day, equivalent to around 2 mg per day for a 70 kg adult.

EFSA also concluded that safety had not been established for people under 25, pregnant and breastfeeding women, or those taking medication. The FSA accepts that the two authorities considered many of the same adverse effects and data gaps, but says the difference arises from different datasets and independent expert judgement.

That explanation may be scientifically defensible, but a five-fold difference between the two authorities is not insignificant. It demonstrates that there is still no settled regulatory consensus on safe daily exposure to CBD.

This becomes even more relevant in light of the European Chemicals Agency’s position. In March 2026, ECHA’s Risk Assessment Committee recommended that CBD be classified as a Category 1B reproductive toxicant and lactation toxicant. The recommendation is not yet a final European Commission decision, and the FSA says it has reviewed the evidence and found nothing requiring it to revise its own 10 mg provisional ADI.

Nevertheless, the direction of travel in Europe is clearly more cautious.

RP427 deserves particular scrutiny

The Board paper also reveals that the proposed delta-9-THC specification for RP427 has been revised following additional evidence from the applicant.

The FSA describes the new limit as a “more feasible” specification that can be consistently achieved and verified across production, while still being consistent with the principle that contaminant levels should be as low as reasonably achievable.

There may be a sound technical case for that change, but the wording raises a legitimate question. Regulatory specifications should be determined principally by safety and legal compliance, not simply by what manufacturers can more easily achieve.

Where a limit changes after the safety assessment and consultation stage, there should be full transparency around how the revised specification was assessed and why it remains acceptable.

The food supplement question has not gone away

There is another unresolved point within the paper that deserves more attention.

The FSA intends to recommend authorisation of all three CBD ingredients for use in food supplements. Yet the paper also acknowledges that, without evidence of a nutritional or physiological effect, CBD products may not meet the legal definition of a food supplement.

The FSA nevertheless maintains that the category is reasonable, partly because consumers generally recognise CBD products as food supplements and because the category provides an established framework for labelling and enforcement.

That leaves an awkward legal position.

Consumer perception does not determine statutory definition, and the FSA itself notes that food supplement policy ultimately rests with the Department of Health and Social Care in England and the Welsh Government in Wales.

Authorisation under novel foods legislation therefore may not resolve all of the questions surrounding how CBD products are categorised and marketed.

The Public List is still not an authorisation

The FSA is clear that the CBD Public List remains an interim measure.

Products included on it are linked to applications progressing through the novel foods process, but they remain unauthorised novel foods. Local authorities retain responsibility for enforcement decisions, with the FSA advising them to prioritise products that are not on the list.

The FSA made the same point in its July 2026 letter to the Retail Insights Group. Inclusion on the Public List does not mean that a product is authorised. That distinction is fundamental and has too often been blurred in industry communications.

The SPS Agreement changes the commercial context

The most important strategic question may ultimately sit outside the individual dossiers.

The FSA has confirmed that, under the proposed UK-EU SPS Agreement, dynamic alignment could mean that EU novel food authorisations would once again become the relevant route for products marketed in Great Britain. In the absence of an agreed exception, businesses would stop applying to the FSA and FSS, and existing GB authorisations could cease to apply.

The FSA’s July letter goes further, stating that a substantial number of applications already in the Market Authorisation Service are unlikely to reach ministerial decision before the proposed Agreement is implemented. That provides important context for the September paper.

The three applications now being advanced are among those closest to the end of the process. It is therefore reasonable to ask whether the current urgency reflects not only regulatory readiness, but also a desire to conclude a small number of applications before the framework changes again.

If that is the case, these first GB authorisations could prove to be important but temporary.

What industry should take from this

The September paper is genuine progress. After years of delay, the prospect of the first CBD novel food authorisations in Great Britain is significant and should not be dismissed. But neither should it be oversold.

The applications still require ministerial approval. The 10 mg provisional ADI remains materially different from EFSA’s current position. European concerns about reproductive toxicity remain live. The legal status of CBD as a food supplement is not entirely tidy. The Public List remains an enforcement mechanism rather than an approval system. And the proposed SPS Agreement may render GB-specific authorisations transitional.

For businesses, investors and retailers, the real issue is therefore not simply whether the first three applications receive approval. It is whether those approvals provide durable regulatory certainty, or whether they are the closing chapter of one system before another takes its place.

That is the question the sector now needs answered.