Taiwan Amends Application Scopes and Maximum Use Limits for Food Additives

According to an official notice (hereinafter the notice), Taiwan FDA revised “Standards for Specification, Scope, Application and Limitation of Food Additives” on March 10, 2022.

Major revisions

1. Nitrogen is newly added into the category of permitted “food quality improvement, fermentation and food processing agents”.

As revealed by the notice, nitrogen can be used in any food categories as packaging gas, gas propellant or foaming agent. As for the use limit, it can be used appropriately based on the real demand. Specifications of nitrogen shall follow the requirements detailed in this notice. For example, the minimum purity shall be 99.0% v/v.

2. Application scope and use limit for “Calcium L-5-Methyltetrahydrofolate” has been settled.

Calcium L-5-Methyltetrahydrofolate can be used in complementary baby food, foods in capsule or tablet form, etc., as a nutrition fortifier. Detailed application scope and use limit are listed in the table below. Specifications of this substance can be found in the notice. 

3. The use limit and specification for lactoferrin has been revised.

When using lactoferrin (as a nutrition fortifier) in foods that need to be labeled with daily consumption limit, the daily consumption amount of lactoferrin shall not exceed 300mg, comparing to 100mg in the previous version. Specification of lactoferrin is revised as well. For example, the level of arsenic shall be less than 2ppm.

4. Specification of “Diacetyl Tartaric Acid Esters of Mono- and Diglycerides” has been revised.

Diacetyl Tartaric Acid Esters of Mono- and Diglycerides is used as an emulsifier. Revised specifications can be found in the notice.