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Thailand ban the production, import and sales of partially hydrogenated oil.

Thailand

Aug 03, 2018

The Ministry of Public Health, Thailand published a Notification on 13 July 2018. to ban the production, import and sale of partially hydrogenated oils, as well as any food that contains them. The industry will have a grace period of 180 days from the day of the publication of this Notification to comply with the requirements.

http://food.fda.moph.go.th/law/data/announ_moph/V.English/No.388_trans_fat.pdf

Following World Health Organization’srecommendation forthe governments around the world to eliminate the use of trans fats, the food authorities and industries in Asia have been making efforts to remove transfats from food. Beside Thailand, Taiwan has also announced the ban the use of partially hydrogenated oil in the year 2016. Other Asian countries that did not  or have not implement ban on the use of partially hydrogenated oil took the approaches such as mandatory trans fatty acid labelling (for example Singapore implement mandatory transfats labelling for fats and oils products) and public education.

Thailand published updated list of plants permitted for Dietary Supplements

Botanical ingredients used in dietary supplements must be approved by Thai FDA. To assist the companies to determine if the botanical ingredients are permitted, Thai FDA has publishedthe list of approved botanical ingredients in Dietary Supplements. The first list which contains 176 ingredients was published in 2017. The second list which contains additional 34 ingredients was published recently in August 2018. Companies must comply with the conditions of use, such as maximum permitted level and mandatory warning statements.

http://food.fda.moph.go.th/law/data/announ_fda/600810_name.pdf

http://food.fda.moph.go.th/law/data/announ_fda/PlantName_2.pdf

 

It was noted that Thai FDA has issued 2 lists of approved ingredients within a short period of 1 year. This may also be the result of the implementation of Novel Food regulation, which specifies the safety assessment criteria and process for the application of new food and dietary supplement ingredients.In the past, companies have to consult Thai FDA on one-to-one basis to determine the requirements verify the safety of the new food and dietary supplement ingredients. The approaches Thai FDA has taken recently will help the industry as they provide clarity on the regulatory requirements.

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