On August 31, 2020, the National Health Commission (NHC) issued a letter on soliciting opinions on the revised draft of the National Food Safety Standard General Rules for the Nutrition Labeling of Prepackaged Foods (Draft for Comments). Previously, the NHC has solicited opinions on the revised draft of the standard on December 19, 2018. Opinions are solicited again this time and the deadline for comments is October 20, 2020. Antion compares the content of the draft with the current version. The analysis and interpretation of main changes and impacts are as follows.

Compared with the current version, if the prepackaged food is directly provided to consumers, the nutrition labeling is supplemented, and it is clearly pointed out that if the prepackaged food and food storage and transportation package are not directly provided to consumers, the nutrition labeling shall be declared in accordance with the draft.

Standard Chinese characters should be used for prepackaged foods. In the draft for comments, the use and description of minority characters have been supplemented, and the characters height shall not be greater than that of Chinese characters.

The definition of serving reference value has been added, and the value of per serving of food is required to be declared. The serving reference value refers to the recommended reference mass or volume (in edible portion) of each food when the nutrition information is declared by "serving". When making the nutrition information based on "serving", companies can refer to the serving reference value of the prepackaged food in the table below. 

For the mandatory nutrient information, it attempts to change from 1+4 form to 1+6. Authorities decide to include saturated fat and sugar in the nutrition panel.

The main changes are as follows:

• Clarify access to the marked values.;

• For voluntary nutrients, added n-3 PUFA, a-linolenic acid, EPA and DHA.

• Modify the requirements for "0" threshold value for vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin B12, zinc and niacin;

• No longer set the upper limit of allowable deviation of vitamin A and vitamin D.

Delete the cholesterol NRV value in Appendix A "Nutrient Reference Values", and revise the NRV value of folic acid, choline, vitamin D, zinc, iodine, selenium, and copper.

In order to facilitate the accurate selection of companies, the recommended format of nutrition label has been increased and modified from 6 to 8 kinds. It is clearly stated that the format can be appropriately changed according to the actual situation under the condition of no misleading consumers.

Supplement the content of energy & nutrient content claim and nutrient comparative claim in Appendix C. Adjust the standard diction for multiple nutrient function claims in Appendix D.

Please click Interpretation to National Food Safety Standard General Rules for the Nutrition Labeling of Prepackaged Foods (Draft for Comments) to get more changes of the Draft.

Source: AntionGlobal

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