Food Compliance
Intelligence & Solutions
Home / News / Details

ChemLinked Oceania Food Regulatory Conference: Latest Food Regulation Updates in China

During our recent Oceania Food Regulatory Conference, our technical expert’s outlined that enforcement of the infant formula registration policy was much more stringent now, especially for the application materials and on-site inspection. In terms of future regulation of China’s health food sector our specialists speculate that filing is likely to play a more important role going forward.

Lots of global food enterprises such as Fonterra, Blackmores and A2 attended ChemLinked Food Regulatory Conference – Oceania 2018 in Melbourne on Nov. 20, 2018. The event was hosted by ChemLinked, in collaboration with Complementary Medicines Australia (CMA), Australian Institute of food science & technology, and The Australia China Business Council (ACBC).

This conference featured the latest food regulation updates in China, covering infant formula, health food, food for special medical purposes, CNCA registration, implementation rules of food safety law and food contact materials.

Infant formula registration is more stringent

Maxwell Heston, regulatory compliance consultant from REACH24H Consulting Group, stated that the supervision of infant formula registration is much more stringent now. Take documents proving R&D capacity for example, previously it was acceptable for an enterprise to submit a single individual R&D report of a single product line which would cover any subsequent applications for additional product lines. Under the heightened supervision, individual R&D reports are now required for each product line. In addition, on-site inspection is now a prerequisite of registration approval (previously it could be conducted after registration approval).

Health food filing to play a more important role

Yuanzhao Yu provided advice on compliance strategy and speculated on future development of health food management in China. He said filing will be a trend for health food supervision. Filing is much easier than health food registration and currently most regulations regarding health food filing are still in a trial phase, implying that the policy will be further optimized in the next few years. The development of the health food registration policy has reached somewhat of an impasse as the Technical Specification for Health Food Testing and Evaluation was abolished this year, meaning there is no reference to guide industry in terms of animal testing and clinical trials.

A huge market for imported FSMP

Yuanzhao Yu also shared his insights on FSMP regulation. Up to now, 18 FSMP products have been granted product registration approval in China. However, since the Implementation Rules for FSMP Production Permission have not been released, domestic FSMP manufacturers are not allowed to produce FSMP at they would lack the required production certificate irrespective of product approval status. This unprecedented situation offers a considerable advantage for overseas enterprise. In addition the extension of the cross border ecommerce grace period means that unregistered FSMPs can still be sold online, forgoing the requirement for imported products sold via CBEC to obtain registration approval.

China now is also drafting a series of product standards for FSMP products, some of which have been listed into the legislation program for the next year.

We provide full-scale global food market entry services (including product registration, ingredient review, regulatory consultation, customized training, market research, branding strategy). Please contact us to discuss how we can help you by food@chemlinked.com
Copyright: unless otherwise stated all contents of this website are ©2024 - REACH24H Consulting Group - All Rights Reserved - For permission to use any content on this site, please contact cleditor@chemlinked.com