China Unveils 17 GB Standards and 1 Amendment, with Food Contact Materials and Articles Involved

On Sep. 16, 2021, China NHC unveiled 17 GB standards and 1 amendment sheet, including six GB standards for food additives, five testing methods for heavy metals and chemical substances, three for nutritional fortification substances, two for bacteria limits in foods, one for product specification, as well as one amendment sheet to GB standard for sports nutrition food. The involved standards are listed below.

17 New GB Standards 

One Amendment Sheet 

Noteworthy Points 

Requirements for pathogen limit in foods are updated 

"GB 29921-2021 National Food Safety Standard Pathogen Limit in Prepackaged Foods" is the new version to replace "GB 29921-2013 National Food Safety Standard Maximum Levels of Pathogenic Bacteria in Foods". The difference between the two standard names highlights that the new GB standard only applies to prepackaged foods, in the meantime, "GB 31607-2021 National Food Safety Standard Pathogen Limit in Bulk Ready-to-eat Foods" was unveiled to address the related requirements for bulk ready-to-eat foods. Except for the 11 general categories of prepackaged foods with set pathogen limits in the current version, GB 29921-2021 newly set requirements for two new general categories, namely, dairy and prepackaged foods for special dietary uses. Product classification of each general category can refer to Annex A-Description of Food Category (Name). 

Determination of overall migration in food contact materials and articles is further detailed 

Compared with the current version, the new "GB 31604.8-2021 National Food Safety Standard Food Contact Materials and Articles Determination of Overall Migration" was further improved by three major revisions. First, the application scope of the determination was expanded. The new GB standard adds a new part for the determination of overall migration in olive oil with specific testing method, reagents and materials, apparatus and equipment, result calculation, etc.

Second, the new version demands a higher requirement of the precision. Instead of simply stipulating that the absolute difference between determination results shall not exceed 20% of the arithmetic mean value, the new version sets two different precision indicators based on the result of the overall migration. Take the determination of overall migration in water-based food simulants and chemical alternative solvent for an example, when the result is ≤ 10.0mg/dm² or 60.0mg/kg, the difference between the two independent determination results obtained under repeatability conditions and their arithmetic mean shall not exceed 1.0mg/dm² or 6.0mg/kg; otherwise the difference shall not exceed 10% of the arithmetic mean value.

Last but not least, the new version introduced two methods, namely, vacuum drying method and constant humidity method in Annex B and C to check the water sensitivity of the sample. If the sample shows water sensitivity, the adjustment of the water content will be needed for the sample before or after the migration test, so as to guarantee the accuracy of the determination result.

All regulation documents and old versions mentioned above are available on ChemLinked Database. For more translation service, please contact ChemLinked.