SAMR and CFSA Officials Indicate the Supervision Trend of Probiotic Health Foods in China

Last week, ChemLinked joined the 6th China Special Food Conference held from Oct. 15 to 18 in Jiangsu Province. To help enterprises catch up on the latest industry dynamics, this article updates the supervision trend of probiotic health foods, especially the highlights of the conference.

You are welcomed to stay tuned with ChemLinked for more reports related to special food market, complementary baby food, etc. Supervision and regulatory trends for FSMP products can be found here.

Supervision Trend of Probiotic Health Food Products

Wan Chao, Director of Health Food Registration Division under Special Food Safety Supervision and Management Department of State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), disclosed the following supervision trends toward probiotic health foods on the conference.

First, manufacturers/suppliers of probiotic strains will bear more responsibilities. At present, it is the responsibility of the applicant (usually the enterprise using bacterial strains in their products) to conduct the safety evaluation of bacterial strains. In the future, the manufacturers of probiotic strains should guarantee the safety and quality of strains.

Second, probiotic health foods are currently subject to the supervision of registration but Wan denoted that SAMR is now considering the feasibility to push forward the filing of some probiotic health food products. To be detailed, for probiotic health foods that intend to claim the common function of probiotics like “regulating intestinal flora”, such products can obtain the product certificate via filing. Otherwise, for products intend to claim individual functions like “improving memory”, they should get products registered. By 2020, among 129 registered probiotic health foods, enhancing immune function and regulating intestinal flora are the functions they claim the most. However, Wan emphasized it is a rough idea to approve some probiotic health foods by filling, which still needs sufficient scientific evidence support.

Data from: Guo Haifeng, Deputy Secretary General of China Nutrition and Health Food Association, Revealed on the 6th China Special Food Conference

Third, Wan disclosed that the “Catalogue of Health Functions Allowed for Health Food Claims” is under revision. Besides, the authority is also in an effort to add more nutrients into the “Health Food Raw Material Directory”.

Wan Chao, an official from Special Food Safety Supervision and Management Division of SAMR

Another expert, Li Fengqin, Director of Department of Microbiology, China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment (CFSA), interpreted the content of “Procedures for Evaluating the Safety of Bacterial Strains for Food Use” (view its consultation draft here). Li said, the finished version would be submitted to the expert committee in this November.

Another important thing mentioned by Li is that China’s National Health Commission will release a new version of “List of Bacterial Cultures Allowed to Be Used in Food in China”, which mainly revises the name of bacterial cultures. For example, “Bifidobacterium infantis” will be revised into “Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis”. ChemLinked assumes that, once the new list comes into effect, it will influence the label of probiotic health food products.

Li Fengqin, Director of Department of Microbiology, China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment