Customs Rejection Data in December 2020, GMO Oil, Frozen Aquatic and Meat Products Involved

As revealed by the GAC Notice¹ released on January 20, 2021, 144 batches of food products were rejected by Chinese customs authorities in December 2020.  

An analysis of food rejected in December 2020 

• Rejected foods, by countries/regions

Taiwan area, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, France, Japan and Germany accounted for 61% of the rejected imported food. As for their major non-compliant categories in December 2020, Taiwan area was mainly non-compliant for seasonings and snacks. Besides, around 80% of the rejected foods from Vietnam were frozen aquatic products. 100% of the rejected foods from Kazakhstan were oil products.

 • Rejected foods, by categories

Snacks, aquatic products, oil products, meat products and seasoning products accounted for 77% of the rejected imported food.

• Rejected foods, by non-compliant reasons

Overall, the top 5 non-compliant reasons were “lack of inspection & quarantine permit”, “lack of documents/evidential materials required”, “excessive use of food additives/nutritional fortifiers”, “undeclared GMO components” and “unqualified labels”, which accounted for 69% of the non-compliant reasons. 

Points worth noting: non-compliant reasons for frozen aquatic/meat products and oil products

 • The top 3 non-compliant reasons for frozen aquatic and meat products were excessive use of the amount of food additive (26%), lack of inspection and quarantine permit (19%) and the detection of animal epidemic disease (14%).

• As for oil products, 15 of the 19 batches of non-compliant oil products were rejected for the detection of undeclared genetically modified components, such as GOX, pCaMV35S, etc.

Overview of the customs rejection data in 2020 

In the past year, 2001 batches of foods were rejected by China’s GAC authority. Most of them were aquatic products, meat products, alcoholic drink& beverage and cereal products. The non-compliant products were mainly from Vietnam, Japan, Taiwan region, etc. 

The top 5 non-compliant reasons were:

• Unqualified labels (17%)

• Animal epidemic disease (12%)

• Lack of documents or evidential materials as required (11%)

• Lack of inspection & quarantine permit (9%)

• The discrepancy between cargo and certificate (8%)