Recently, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued the "Implementation Rules for the Evaluation of New Functions and Product Technology of Health Food (Trial)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Implementation Rules"), aiming to promote the research and development of new functions and products of health food and better meet the health needs of the people. The Implementation Rules provide detailed specifications from six aspects: "new function research", "material acceptance", "technical evaluation", and "post market evaluation". They encourage and guide social forces such as enterprises, universities, and research institutions in the field of health food to carry out functional innovation and product research and development, and further promote the high-quality development of China's health food industry. The industry has commented that the "Implementation Rules" are an important measure to reform the evaluation and management model of traditional health food function claims in China from a systemic perspective. Institutional innovation leads industrial innovation, consumption structure upgrading leads industrial transformation and upgrading, and high-quality products meet the growing health needs of the people, continuously improving their satisfaction and sense of gain.
Encourage enterprises to increase investment in new function research and development
A large bottle of "three no products" vitamins and cod liver oil packaged as "tall and upscale"; Using free eggs as a bait to spend a huge amount of money to purchase "healing medicine"... When it comes to health food, many people will think of words such as "counterfeit and shoddy", "substandard", and "deceived". However, industry insiders have stated that this is a great misunderstanding of health food. As one of the special foods, health food plays an important role in chronic disease prevention, health promotion, and quality of life improvement.
The Implementation Rules clearly state that any unit or individual may, on the basis of conducting relevant research, independently or jointly propose new functional suggestions to the Food Evaluation Center of the State Administration for Market Regulation (hereinafter referred to as the "Food Evaluation Center"). The positioning of new functions should be clear, divided into three categories: supplementing dietary nutrients, maintaining or improving the body's health status, and reducing disease risk factors. If it is recommended that any unit or individual simultaneously submit new functional suggestions and corresponding new functional health food registration applications, the food evaluation center should receive them simultaneously and conduct related evaluations. At the same time, new functions are recommended to be included in the list of health functions that allow health food claims. New function research and technical evaluation should be conducted, and post market evaluation of new function health food should be conducted.
Allowing any unit or individual to individually or jointly propose new functional suggestions and registration applications for health food, in a seemingly simple sentence, contains enormous business opportunities faced by China's health food industry.
Professor Yang Weidong from the Institute of Rule of Law and Government at China University of Political Science and Law introduced that the Food Hygiene Law introduced in 1995 officially established the legal status of health food. In 1996, the former Ministry of Health issued regulations on the management of health food, clarifying that health food is "food with specific health functions" and stating that "it is not allowed to promote therapeutic effects". Since then, China's health food market has entered the era of standardized management. In the subsequent "Functional Evaluation Procedures and Inspection Methods for Health Food" released by the former Ministry of Health, 12 functions such as immune regulation that can be declared for health food were identified.
Over the next 20 years, there has been no formal introduction of detailed operating procedures or management rules for the development and application of new functions for health food