South Korea to Amend the Health Functional Food Labeling Standard

On February 25, 2022, MFDS unveiled the exposure draft of Health Functional Food Labeling Standard¹. It mainly proposes the requirement of labelling the allergy statements on the information panel and labelling the probiotics count in Korean. Suggestions are welcome before March 17, 2022.

The details are specified as below:

1. Allergy Statement

The draft requires enterprises to label the ingredients that can cause allergies on the information panel.

In the present version of Health Functional Food Labeling Standard², labeling the allergy-causing ingredients on the information panel is voluntary. The allergy statements can be placed either on the information panel or in the product's instructions. Once the draft is passed, the ingredients that can cause allergies should be placed only on the information panel.

Background

The officially specified food ingredients that can cause allergies include:

egg, milk, buckwheat, peanut, soybean, wheat, mackerel, crab, shrimp, pork, peach, tomato, sulfurous acid, walnut, chicken, beef, squid, clam, and pine nut.

2. Probiotics Count

To help Korean consumers easily check the probiotics count in the products, the exposure draft proposes to add a Korean expression of how many the detailed number is as a compulsory requirement.

For example “100,000,000 CFU/g” should be labeled as the “100,000,000 (1억) CFU/g” or “1억 CFU/g”. (“1억”means “100 million”).