Food for thought?

In the Netherlands a reduced VAT rate is applied to food. X supplied aphrodisiac capsules drops and powders to which it applied the reduced rate on the basis that these items were food. The products were taken orally intended for human consumption and were composed of animal and vegetable matter.

The Dutch authorities challenged this treatment and the matter was referred to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) for a ruling on what was meant by the word ‘foodstuffs’. It held that the term must be interpreted in accordance with the every-day meaning of language. On that basis it determined that the word meant ‘products containing nutrients which serve as building blocks generate energy and regulate its functions which are necessary to keep the human body alive and enable it to function and develop and which are consumed in...