Proposal to apply 2 management mechanisms for food products

In a report recently sent to the Ministry of Justice for appraisal, the Ministry of Health proposed that the Government issue a resolution to resolve current difficulties and shortcomings in the Food Safety Law.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Health proposed applying two management mechanisms for food products: declaring applicable standards (self-declaration) and registering food product declarations. This is to overcome the inconsistency between the Food Safety Law and the guiding document (Decree No. 15/2018/ND-CP), which requires "registering conformity declarations" for many types of food before circulation.

The Government 's draft resolution has classified products to apply separate mechanisms for each type.

According to the orientation of product classification to have its own mechanism, the standard declaration mechanism is applied to pre-packaged processed foods, food additives, food processing aids, food containers/materials that do not have technical regulations or do not have a suitable certification organization, micronutrients, and food supplements that only contain vitamins and minerals and do not publish health recommendations (health claims).

Registration of food product declaration is applied to health protection foods, medical nutritional foods, foods for special dietary uses, food supplements (except those containing only vitamins and minerals and without health recommendations) and nutritional products for children up to 36 months of age.

Draft resolution exempts declaration/registration procedures for products manufactured/imported for export or internal use only, and imported products for aid purposes.

Another important change relates to the regulation on proving the product's effectiveness (especially for functional foods). Accordingly, the application for registration of functional food declaration will not require a test report on the effectiveness of the product's effectiveness but instead will require the use of scientific evidence to prove the effectiveness.

At the same time, "scientific evidence" is clearly defined as "information, data, scientific documents from research works published in prestigious national and international scientific journals (ISI, SCOPUS), or published documents on traditional medicine, medicinal plants, medicine, pharmacy, and food".

The draft resolution also clearly stipulates the mechanism and procedures for revoking the results of the announcement of applied standards and registering product declarations in case of violations by enterprises or products that do not meet the standards/conditions after announcement/registration.

This regulation helps to overcome the legal gap because the current Food Safety Law does not have specific regulations on the revocation of administrative procedure settlement results, causing difficulties in handling violations.

MR. PHUONG

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/de-xuat-ap-dung-2-co-che-quan-ly-doi-voi-san-pham-thuc-pham-post808285.html