CHINA NATIONAL CENTER FOR FOOD SAFETY RISK ASSESSMENT IS SOLICITING OPINIONS ON THE “NATIONAL FOOD SAFETY STANDARD FOR USES OF FOOD ADDITIVES”

On 12 December 2017, the China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment initiated the process to review the “National Food Safety Standard for uses of food additives” as is required by the formulation & amendment project of national food safety standards of the National Health and Family Planning Commission of 2016. To that purpose it has opened a public consultation to gather the public opionion.

The definition of food additives has been revised; nutritional fortification substances have been included among the food additives; the definition of INS and CNS has been modified; the categorization system has been modified; the inquiry mode of food additives in Annex A has been revised, Table A.2 in the original standard has been deleted, which has been integrated to Table A.1; the food additives functional category in Chapter 8 and the index of provisions for uses of food additives in Chapter 9 have been added in this amendment.

The dried vegetables (dehydrated potato powder only) and dried vegetable (dehydrated potato only) in Annex A have been modified to include cereal products (dehydrated potato product only) (food category number 06.04.02.02); and other coarse cereal products (frozen french fries, frozen potato cake, frozen mashed potato, frozen sweet potato mud and dehydrated potato powder only) in Annex A have been modified to other coarse cereal products (dehydrated potato product only) (food category number 06.04.02.02): the provisions for uses of food additive of the two categories mentioned above remain the same.

Since GB 2760-2014 was issued for implementation, supervision departments have repeatedly reflected that the application range of processing aid-hydrogen peroxide listed in Table C.1 is not clear, and part of the manufacturers use this material for bleaching of chicken feet and trotters that do not belong to processing aids. In order to meet the regulatory needs, it is defined in this standard that hydrogen peroxide in Table C.1 is deleted after this amendment, which will be included in Table C.2, and the function of which is “desulfurizing agent”, the application range is “starch sugar process”.

In addition, cocoa with cocoa butter alternatives and chocolate like products with cocoa butter alternatives (food category number 05.01.03) have been modified to cocoa with cocoa butter alternatives and its products (food category number 05.01.03), and the regulations for uses of the food additives of this category remain unchanged in this amendment. The blended soybean sauce (food category number 12.04.02) and blended vinegar (food category number 12.03.02) have been classified in liquid complex condiment (excluding 12.03, 12.04) (food category number 12.10.03).

Sources: Global FoodMate