Profile
Prof. Dr. Matthias Horst is specialized in advising and assisting companies and trade associations on issues covered by EU and German food and tobacco law, especially including their adaption to the frequent changes of the EU tobacco legislation: „The tobacco law is highly complex and to a large extend characterized by political wishful thinking and thus poses major challenges for industry, importers and retailers requiring intense advise and support“.
About
Born in Tübingen in 1948, Prof. Dr. Matthias Horst studied law in Bonn and in Lausanne, Switzerland. He has been a lawyer since 1975 and obtained his doctorate at the Ruhr University in Bochum in 1987. From 1991 to 2009, he was a visiting lecturer at the University of Bonn; from 1999, as an honorary professor. Prof. Horst has been a lawyer at ZENK since 2013.
Prof. Horst was chief executive of the BLL (today Lebensmittelverband Deutschland e. V., German Food Association) and the Federation of German Food and Drink Industries (BVE) for a number of years. He was a long-standing member of the German Food Code Commission and the administrative board of the European Food Safety Authority in Parma, Italy.
Prof. Horst is commenting the tobacco law as part of the scientific publication „Sosnitza/Meisterenst Lebensmittelrecht (Food Law)“ , C.H. Beck, Munich; he is publisher of the „Klein-Rabe-Weiss“ collection of Food Law, Behr’s, Hamburg, and member of the scientific advisory committee of the Research Centre for European and German Food and Feed Law at the Philipps University in Marburg.
Languages
German, English, Dutch
Publications
Purnhagen/Schäfer/Horst (Hrsg.) 2026: BeckOK Lebensmittelrecht, C.H. Beck München
„From Fark to Fork“ – Schwerpunkte der EU-Lebensmittelrechtspolitik bis 2024“, Zeitschrift für Europarecht (EuZ Digital 4/2022), Universität Zürich
Memberships
Legal and scientific committees of the Food Association Germany e. V. (former BLL)