The China Nutritional Health Food Association, together with local regulatory authorities and fraternal associations, formed a advocacy group to continue to publicize special food policy and regulation throughout the country. The event has been successfully held for four session. The purpose is to better interpret a series of special food policy systems and regulatory standards issued by the state, strengthen industry information dissemination, and promote the implementation of policies and regulations.
On March 25th, the fifth session of the special food policy and regulation free open course was successfully held in Jinan, Shandong Province. The theme of the session was “Health Food Regulation and the Management of Special Food Raw Materials”. In total, the course invited nearly 200 representatives from local provincial bureaus, industry organizations, which included experts and scholars, and health food and raw material manufacturers at home and abroad. Bian Zhenjia, president of the CNHFA, and Liu Xuecong, secretary-general of the CNHFA, attended the course.
Jin Fabin, deputy director of the Health Food Regulation Sector of the Special Food Safety Regulation Department of the State Administration of Market Regulation, lectured as the first speaker. He detailed the work responsibilities and division of health food departments of the State Administration of Market Regulation, introduced the current types of false publicity of health food based on the impact of the “Quanjian” incident, and analyzed health food regulatory requirements of the 100-day campaign, which was aimed at rectifying the disorder in the health food market.
Liu Hongyu, director of the Third Health Food Division of the Food evaluation Center of the State Administration of Market Regulation (SAMR), explained in detail the common problems regarding to the technical requirements for registration and record filing of health food. He also introduced the progress of health food registration at the SAMR. Considering review and approval are important work in the industry, Director Liu explained the regulatory requirements and technical specifications in detail, and answered the questions to facilitate application.
Ding Hong, deputy director of the Food Control Department of the National Institute for Food and Drug Control, interpreted the relevant contents of health food function and toxicological testing technology. Relevant requirements are still being formulated, and interaction and communications were conducted during the meeting.
Wang Gang, director of the Department of Regulatory Affairs of the CNHFA, shared opinions on the following topics: the relevant regulations on health food advertisement review, case study of common violations in advertising, the revision background of the “Good Manufacturing Practices for Health Food”, major issues found during industry surveys, and the progress of various regulatory revisions.
Yu Haiqi, a member of the Special Food Raw Materials and Ingredients Professional Committee of the CNHFA, introduced relevant information on the management of raw materials for health food products in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, the United States, the European Union, Canada and other countries or regions.
The CNHFA will continue to organize advocacy activities on laws and regulations regarding to product access, production and operation, monitoring and sampling, advertising law enforcement, and industrial development and earnestly do a good job in policy training and interpretation based on product regulatory requirements and main issues in the industry, in order to serve the development needs of the industry. The products involved includes health food, infant formulas, formula food for special medical purposes, infant food supplements and other special diets.
