Introduction of Food Safety Control System in China

Introduction of Food Safety Control System in China Qiu Yueming China National Institute of Standardization, AQSIQ, P. R. China

Main Content • Introduction • Regulations and standards • Domestic supervision • Certification and Accreditation • Export food control • International co-operation • Rectification and consolidation • Conclusion

Introduction • The Chinese government, as it has always done, attaches great importance to food quality and safety. • It has established a whole system for food quality control and assurance: enactment of food regulations and standards, supervision and administration, certification and accreditation, and export control. • To balance two needs: • Advanced technologies and experience from developed countries and to meet their requirements of food laws and regulations, • Own economic and scientific status and productivity • Reached a high level in food quality control and food safety guarantee: • Certain technologies /equipments advanced • Exported food qualification rate above 99% • Monitoring and control system effective

Regulations and standards Laws: • Law on production quality • Law on food hygiene • Law on agricultural products quality and safety • Law on standardization • Law on Import and Export Commodity Inspection • Law on animal quarantine • Law on infectious disease protection and treatment • Law on entry-exit animal and plant quarantine • Agriculture law • Fishing law etc.

Regulations and standards Stipulations and detailed rules: • Stipulated regulation on veterinary drug administration • Chinese veterinary pharmacopoeia • Stipulated regulation on pesticide administration • Stipulated regulation on feed and feed additives administration • Stipulated regulation on the implementation of the law of import and export commodity inspection • Stipulated regulation on the implementation of the law of entry- exit animal and plant quarantine • Quality and safety supervision requirements on food producing and processing plants

Regulations and standards Stipulations and detailed rules: • National standard administration requirements • Professional standard administration requirements • Regional standard administration requirements • Administration requirement on food additive hygiene • Administration requirements on feed additive hygiene • Requirements on organic food accreditation • Administration requirements for food processing enterprises in application for food hygienic registration abroad • Administration requirements on export commodities registration • Administrative requirements on restaurant food hygiene

The state administration of standardization is in charge of the planning, examine and verifying, numbering, and announce of national standard. Four levels: national standard, professional standard, regional standard, and enterprise standard >2,100 national standards(650 mandatory) ; >2,900 industrial (professional) standards. GB Professional standards Regional standards Enterprise standards Regulations and standards

Regulations and standards • Maximum residue limits: 9 • Food additive specifications: 149 • Special diet and nutrition: 17 • Food label: 2 • Control procedures in food manufacture: 23 • Determination methods and procedures: 27 • Hygienic requirements in products: 89 • Packing materials and their requirements: 46

Regulations and standards Important standards: • GB 2760-2005, Application requirements and tolerance for food additives; • GB 2761-2005, Maximum residue limits for mycotoxins in foods; • GB 2762-2005, Maximum residue limits for environmental pollutants in foods; • GB 2763-2005, Maximum residue limits for pesticides in food; • Notification No 235 of MOA, Maximum residue limits of veterinary drug residues in food of animal origin

Domestic supervision • Principle: “Prevention first, governance from the very origin” • Working pattern: “Unified leadership at national level, responsibilities shouldered by the local government, guidance and coordination provided by the ministries, joint actions taken by different parties”

Domestic supervision Four ministries : • MOA: ministry of Agriculture • AQSIQ: General State Administration of Quality Supervision and Inspection and Quarantine • SAIT: State Administration of Industry and Trade • MOH: Ministry of Public Health

Processing plants and slaughterhouse Import and export products AQSIQ Source control of primary products MOA Restaurants and school coordination, investigation MOH Circulation places SAIT Responsibilities of the four ministries

Domestic supervision • MOA: Action Plan for Hazard-Free Food to address pesticide and veterinary drug residue problems for agricultural products. • AQSIQ: market access system to ensure food quality and safety; random tests; recall system • SAIT: market inspection; record and exam buy-in products, to check the licenses and issue invoices, and to keep records of trading accounts; • MOH: supervision in restaurants, risk assessment, coordination, investigation in serious food accidents

Domestic supervision AQSIQ testing system: Domestic: • 56 national food quality supervision and testing centers • 381 regional inspection labs • >2000 county level inspection places Export: • 198 national key laboratories • 318 regional laboratories The laboratories possesses instruments worth of 0.8 billion RMB. There are totally 100 thousands of technicians.

Certification and Accreditation • Encourage enterprises to implement quality control system and to carry out advanced management standards. Set up certification and accreditation system • GAP and HACCP have been put into operation in the areas of agricultural materials control, management of planting and breeding, food processing and manufacturing, packaging, storage and marketing.

Certification and Accreditation Some standards: • “Notification on the Implementation of an Agricultural Products Certification and Accreditation System ” was issued by CNCA. • ChinaGAP: GB/T20014.1-11 – 2004 standards • GMP: 21 standards, in revision • HACCP: GB/T 19537-2004 ( for vegetables), 2 in plan; etc.

Certification and Accreditation • Issued 3,368 certificates for organic products, accredited areas reaching 2.03 million hectares: one of the top ten countries in terms of accredited organic area • 286 export-oriented enterprises and demonstrative fields for agricultural standardization in 18 provinces have been chosen as pilot places for the practice of GAP, among which, 210 have been accredited • 4,187 establishments have been granted the accreditation

Export food control • More emphasis and stricter supervision • export food safety supervision framework: one mode, ten systems “one mode” : “company + farms + standardization”, meaning raw materials of export oriented food establishments must come from qualified planting or breeding farms. All farms must have standardized planting and breeding, and must implement agricultural standardization system such as GAP.

Export food control “Ten systems”: • system of registration for farms, • monitoring system of epidemic diseases, • monitoring and control system of pesticide and veterinary drug residues, • system of hygienic registration for export food establishments, • system of classification and grading for enterprises, • system of assigning official inspectors and veterinarians to high-risk and large-scale export oriented food establishments, • system of statutory inspection and quarantine over food for export, • system of traceability and recall of unqualified products, • rapid alert system • system of “red-list and blacklist” for export oriented enterprises.

Export food control By the end of 2007, registered export-oriented farms: 66,700 hectares of tea plantation, 225,000 hectares of vegetable farms, 1,754 pig farms, 1,969 chicken farms, 148 poultry farms (for eggs), 47 rabbit farms, 990 aquaculture farms, 503 eel farms. registered enterprises for export: 12,334

Export food control • system of “red-list and blacklist”: For the companies having a sound internal control system to ensure food safety and enjoying good reputation in importing countries, AQSIQ encourages them by putting them in the list of “excellent enterprises (red-list)” and granting them with favorable policies. enterprises being notified of severe quality problems by importing countries, or evading export inspection & quarantine, or even cheating local CIQ, AQSIQ punishes them by putting their names into “illegal enterprises (blacklist)” and at the same time, suspending their export, or canceling registration, or even revoking their sanitation registration certificates.

Export food control • Electronic supervision network: National Common Video Network Platform real-time monitoring and supervision on raw materials, production, testing of finished products storage and transportation, and in the case the whole process is in compliance with relevant requirements, to give automatic “green light” to products for export. three levels: with AQSIQ headquarter at the top level to control the whole network and all spots, and provincial and local CIQs at the second and third levels

International co-operation • CAC: CCFA, CCPR host country • Cooperation with Europe for food safety • Sino-Japan cooperation system • China and USA cooperation in food safety

Rectification and consolidation • Special rectification and consolidation actions: • Re-examination of registered enterprises, re-accreditation of HACCP certification, labeling of packages, etc. • The packages of all food products intended for export must be put on CIQ label; • All illegal susceptible import goods must be returned or destroyed; all the 15,903 registered farms providing raw materials have been checked up; • All the 12,793 registered food establishments have been checked up; • All the.787 establishments for aquaculture intended for US markets have been verified for HACCP accreditation; • A new law, the Law of Food Safety will be enforced soon. Compared to the old Law of Food Hygiene, the new law stresses more on the risk assessment and the punishment on violations is expected to be more severe.

Conclusion After years of practice, years of learning and absorbing advanced technologies and experience from other countries, food safety control system in China has been improved gradually together with the growth of China’s productivity. The system is effective in all aspects including legislation, law enforcement, supervision, and controlling. We are confident the system can assure the safety of Chinese food products. We are also confident that China’s food safety control system will be bettered and further improved along with the development of science and technology.

Introduction of Food Safety Control System in China