South Korea Optimizes the Regulation of General Food with Functional Claims

On March 8, 2023, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) released the amendments to the Regulation on Exceptions of Prohibited Labels and Advertisements of Food Function Claims¹.

What this regulation is about:

On December 29, 2020, MFDS introduced the Regulation on Exceptions of Prohibited Labels and Advertisements of Food Function Claims. This regulation firstly permitted the general food to label with the "function claims", which was only applied to "health functional food (dietary supplement)" before, opening more opportunities to the food industry and benefitting the general food companies. The regulation specifies the function scope for general foods as well as the allowable contents of the functional ingredients in general foods. (Check here to find out the detailed interpretation of the regulation)

The new revision mainly optimizes the ambiguous requirements in the regulation to better guide the industry.

First, when setting the functional material's recommended daily intake amount, the daily intake of "individually recognized ingredient" newly becomes a reference in addition to recommended daily intake. Previously, the contents of the functional ingredients were required to “exceed 30% of the recommended daily intake stipulated in Health Functional Food Code², whilst less than the maximum permissible contents”. Under the new version, the functional material’s daily intake in the general food with functional claims can also be more than 30% of the daily intake of the “individually recognized ingredients”.

Additionally, the application precedence of related regulations is clarified. When amendments occur to Health Functional Food Code² or Food Code³, the relevant items stipulated in the Regulation on Exceptions of Prohibited Labels and Advertisements of Food Function Claims¹ shall follow the modified provisions thereof, no matter whether the Regulation is updated. For example, if the “recommended daily intake table” is changed in the Health Functional Food Code², the calculation of the daily intake amounts for general food with functional claims shall follow the amended values.

Besides, the recommended daily intake of Indigestible Maltodextrin is modified as per the updates in Health Functional Food Code². The current criteria are as below:

Functional ingredient	Function	Recommended Daily Intake
Indigestible Maltodextrin (난소화성말토덱스트린)	Helpful to maintain healthy postprandial glucose level (식후 혈당상승 억제에 도움을 줄 수 있음)	Indigestible Maltodextrin: 4.0~30 g (in case of liquid ingredients, 4.0~44 g);
	Helpful to maintain healthy triglyceride level (혈중 중성지질 개선에 도움을 줄 수 있음)	5.0~30 g as indigestible Maltodextrin (in case of liquid ingredients, 5.0~44 g);
	Helpful to maintain healthy bowel function (배변활동 원활에 도움을 줄 수 있음)	4.2~30 g as indigestible Maltodextrin (in case of liquid ingredients, 4.2~44 g).