Takehome:
- Use of illegal health food marketing practices and radioactive Japanese food were major food safety topics addressed in this year’s World Consumer Rights Day.
Mar. 15 marks world consumer rights day during which food safety is always an important focus for both government and consumers. This year, food advertisements, illegal health food marketing practices and radioactive Japanese food were the major topics related to food safety and will definitely be earmarked for stricter supervision measures henceforth.
Food advertisement
The use of false and misleading product advertisements online is still a major issue. However, in China it is explicitly stipulated in Article 73 of Food Safety Law that “food advertisements shall not include any false information, and shall not claim any disease prevention or treatment functions. Food producers and traders shall be responsible for the authenticity and legality of the advertisements for their food products.” Industry can expect a significant crackdown on false and misleading product advertisements by the Chinese government over the next several months.
Health food illegal marketing practices
Many health food enterprises hold free “health lectures” and mislead consumers by exaggerating product functions and efficacy or even claim efficacy in treating disease. Conventional food is often advertised as having health food functions, which allow sellers to increase the price several times higher than standard prices. However, it is stipulated that only health foods are allowed to bear functional claims (related to disease risk factor reduction), only 27 function claims are allowed to be used on health foods and no disease treatment related functions can be claimed.
Radioactive Japanese food
In 2011, it was announced by AQSIQ that Japanese food from 10 regions of Japan that were contaminated by radioactive fallout from Japan’s most recent nuclear disaster were prohibited to be imported to China. However, during consumer rights day it was revealed that there is still a lot of food products from regions of Japan included in the nuclear contamination embargo still being sold through cross border ecommerce channels or on the shelves of well-known merchants within China including MUJI, JUSCO, etc. These products include the best-selling milk powder, cereals, beverages, etc., with the country of origin indicated on the Chinese label only as Japan but with no detailed address.