Status Quo of Imported Health Food Registration/Filing in China as of 2020 H1

1. Registration/Filing in 2020 H1

In the first half of 2020 (by June 30), 32 imported health food products obtained the filing certificates issued by SAMR, while no imported health food was granted registration approval.

It is noteworthy that the amount of filing approval granted during 2020 H1 is much higher than first-halfs of the past few years.

* The approval date in this article refers to the date on the filing certificates.

2. Registration/Filing analysis as of 2020 H1

As of Jun 2020, 104 imported health food products have obtained filing approval (excluding three canceled products, filing number “食健备J201800000019”, “食健备J201800000032” and”食健备J201800000034”).

The Number of Approved Imported Health Food Filing since 2017

Data source: SAMR Center for Food Evaluation

Compared with the number of domestic health food registration, imported health food registration suffers from stagnation since 2018. Functions of the registered import health food approved in 2017 are supplementing vitamins and mineral substances, which means these applications might be submitted before the implementation of Administrative Measures for Registration and Filing of Health Foods.

The Number of Approved Health Food Registration since 2017

Data source: Special Food Information Query Platform

2.1 Place of origin

As of 2020 H1, manufacturers from 10 countries have won the imported health food filing approval. USA ranked the top (amounting to 68 products), followed by Canada (12) and Australia (10).

2.2 Manufacturer

Twenty-seven manufacturers have obtained imported health food product filing as of June 2020. Major manufactures are as follows:

 2.3 Product form

The form of approved products include tablets, capsules, drops, oral liquid and granules. Tablets (including general tablets, chewable tablets and effervescent tablets) account for the majority, representing 58% of the overall.

2.4  Nutrient Supplement Type

•  Number of supplement type

Among 104 approved products, 56 products (54%) contain only one kind of supplement. Vitamin D products (16) account for the largest proportion of single-supplement products, followed by vitamin E (8), folic acid (7) and vitamin C (7) products. 

• Nutrient varieties in filed imported health food
  

In the 104 proved products, vitamin D occurs most frequently among all vitamins, and calcium occurs most frequently among mineral supplements.