Korea Issues Implementation Rules for Special Law on Safety Management of Imported Foods

Feb 4th is the effective date of Korea’s new Special Law on Safety Management of Imported Foods. On the same day, Korea MFDS issued its Implementation Rules which further supplements provisions of the special Law. The main contents include details about registration of overseas food manufacturers, measures on food import suspension and cancellation of suspension, recognition criteria for overseas food sanitation assessment agencies, food importers and distributor sanitation education, categories of food products that are subject to distribution and traceability management, etc.  

1. According to the Implementation Rules, importers or overseas manufacturers should provide the manufacturer’s name, address, legal representative, product types (such as food, food additive or health food, etc.) and business scope (like food or food additive and containers, packaging manufacturing)when applying for registration with MFDS.

2. MFDS should inform the overseas manufacturer of any prohibition of importation in written form. When the ban is lifted, the manufacturer, importer or the exporting country should be informed of the change in writing.

3. To achieve effective onsite inspection of overseas factories, MFDS can delegate food safety management certification bodies in Korea or food sanitation assessment agencies which are competent and recognized by MFDS to undertake activities.

4. Food importers and distributors should receive education regarding food laws/regulations, hygienic and quality management from MFDS every year. The required education time for new business entities is four hours and for existing entities is 3 hours.

5. MFDS should categorize importers into excellent importers, general importers and those in need of special management. Each category will receive differential inspection and supervision during customs inspection, on-site inspection and sampling inspection.

6. Imported foods that are subject to traceability requirements include foods for babies and young children, health functional food and modified milk.