New national food safety standards aim to clarify regulations

Pin accordance with the Food Safety Law, the National Health Commission and the State Administration for Market Regulation jointly issued Announcement No. 1 of 2024, which issued 47 new national food safety standards and six lists of changes, with the aim of meeting the development of the industry and the needs consumers, as well as further improving food safety management.

Among them, the GB 2760-2024 Food Additive Application Standards is the first revision of the original GB 2760-2014 Standards, issued in 2014. As one of the most important national food safety standards in China in this field of food additive application, in addition to the changes regarding varieties, regulations and requirements for the use of specific food additives, food flavors and essences, processing aids for the food industry, etc., we note that Standards for the use of food additives,
GB 2760-2024, includes the following key changes:

Revisions of definitions. For example, the definition of “food additive” in the new version of the above-mentioned standards covers nutritional enhancers, which means that from now on, regulations on the administration of food additives will be able to refer to the use, and standards, nutritional enhancers; the definition of “food flavor” has been changed to “a substance added to a food product to impart flavor, mask the flavor or enhance the flavor” to comply with national standards for food flavors.

Simplification and improvement. For example, Annex A (Regulations on the use of food additives) has been simplified from three parts of the original standards, namely A.1, A.2 and A.3, to two parts, namely A.1 and A.2, to make it easier to search and use by companies and relevant persons. INS numbers have also been added to Schedule E (Schedule A Food Additive Regulation Index) to facilitate retrieval and use by companies and relevant persons (in particular persons not familiar with the Chinese language).

Explanation. For example, some foods classified as “miscellaneous” in the original standards have now been reclassified; and with regard to vague expressions in the original standards such as “shall comply with the provisions of the relevant standards” or “shall be labeled in accordance with the relevant national standards” used in Annex B (Regulations on the use of food flavours), the specific national food safety standards are now clearly specific, such as National Food Safety Standards, General Principles for the Labeling of Food Additives (GB29924) and National Food Safety Standards, General Principles for the Labeling of Prepackaged Foods (GB7718).

The new version of the standards will be officially implemented from February 8, 2025. Considering that the new standards will have a significant impact on product research and development, product compliance reviews, production and operation, etc., we recommend that enterprises immediately review and make any necessary adjustments to the use of food additives to meet the requirements of new standards.

Furthermore, businesses should be aware of the need to make necessary adjustments to food labels to remain consistent with changes made to the use of food additives.

Business Law Digest was produced with the assistance of Baker McKenzie. Readers should not act on this information without seeking professional legal advice.
You can contact Baker McKenzie by emailing Howard Wu (Shanghai) at [email protected]