Microbial Food Cultures (MFC) plays a very important role in the development of food fermentation industry. The safety assessment, approval procedures and list management of MFC are increasingly strict and standardized in the world. Foodmate has studied the regulation of MFC in the world, providing references for the use of MFC to food manufacturers. This issue mainly introduces parts of China mainland, Taiwan, the European Union and the United States.

1. Chinese Mainland

In China, the National Health Commission regulates the list of MFC, mainly including the "List of microbial species that can be used in food", "List of microbial species that can be used in infant food", "List of probiotic species that can be used in health food", and "List of fungal species that can be used in health food" , as well as the MFC approved in the announcement of new food ingredients. In addition to the above MFC, the MFC traditionally used for food processing allowed to continue to use.

2. Taiwan, China

The "Taiwan Ministry of Health and Welfare" regulates the use of MFC in Taiwan，China. The "Platform for the Integrated Use of Food Ingredients" lists some MFC. The food ingredients in this platform do not have traditional consumption habits and are similar to new food ingredients in Chinese Mainland. In addition, the "Taiwan Ministry of Health and Welfare" website will publish the approved health food, and you can check the probiotics used in food.

3. United States

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates MFC primarily through Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS), and MFC that were traditionally consumed in the United States prior to 1958 can be included in the GRAS list. For the MFC after 1958, the FDA will evaluate the materials submitted by the applicant based on scientific procedures to decide whether to include them in the GRAS list. The "GRAS Notification" database on the FDA website also lists some of the MFCs that are available if the FDA responds "no questions". In addition, the “United States Pharmacopoeia” and the “United States Food Chemicals Codex” jointly proposed the recommended standards for probiotics, including a list of probiotics.

4. EU

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has established the Qualified Presumption of Safety (QPS) system to manage the MFC traditionally consumed . Since traditional consumption habits have already proved the safety of such kind of MFC, EFSA has established a simple risk assessment procedure to evaluate their safety, and after passing the assessment, they will be included in the QPS list and authorized for use. The list is updated once a year and published on EFSA official website. For microbial cultures that are not traditionally consumed, EFSA conducts a comprehensive risk assessment and should be approved by the European Commission for inclusion in the list of new food ingredients before they can be used. The MFC approved as new food ingredients can be found in the (EU) 2017/2470.