Today, Foodmate will introduce the risk management measures for imported food in China, The article will include 2 parts. Firstly, we will look at the risk warning system of General Administration of Customs of China (GACC). Then, we will introduce some control measures that GACC will take. A briefly regulatory trend will be forecast at the end.

1. Risk warning

GACC implements a risk warning system for imported food. If serious food safety issues or epidemics are found in imported food, or food safety incidents or epidemics occurring in the domestic and overseas may affect the safety of imported foods, the customs will take risk warning and control measures timely.

The customs will establish a collection network of import food safety information to collect and sort out food safety information. Moreover, the customs will conduct risk analysis and judgment on the collected food safety information,, and issue risk warning notification after determining the risk level.

2. Control measures

GACC may issue risk warning notices and decide to take the following control measures:

(1) Conditionally restrict import, including strict monitoring, strict inspection, ordering recall, etc;

(2) Prohibit import, including destroy on site and return abroad.

(3) Start the emergency response plan for import food safety.

Different control measures are taken according to the principles of disposal measures for enterprises and products involved in bad records at various levels. The specific principles are shown in Table 1 and table 2.

When domestic import food enterprises with bad records meet the conditions for removing the risk warning (Table 1), the enterprise may apply for removing the risk warning.

When an overseas food import company with bad records meets the conditions for removing the risk warning (Table 1), it may apply to the food safety authority of the country/region where it is located to lift the risk warning. The food safety authority of the country/region conducts investigations based on the enterprise's application, and reports the enterprise's rectification measures and investigation reports to the General Administration of Customs.

If the bad record involves the entire country/region, which meets the conditions for removing the risk warning (Table 2), the food safety authority of the country/region shall report the investigation of the problem and the rectification of the regulatory measures to the General Administration of Customs.

When it is considered that the safety risk of imported food does not exist or has been reduced to an acceptable level, the customs will timely cancel the risk warning notification and control measures.

3. Future regulatory trends

In June 2020, China released the draft of the new version of "import and export food safety management measures"(IEFSMM), and the feedback time is one month. If the new version of IEFSMM is officially released, more scientific and advanced regulatory measures will be taken for imported food. Please pay attention to Foodmate. once the new IEFSMM is released, we will share and interpret them in time.

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Business Division of Food Safety and Regulatory Compliance of Global Foodmate provides food standards & regulations research, labelling compliance consulting/Chinese label design, industry public opinion monitoring and analysis, registration services (of Infant formula, FSMP, Health food, Novel Food Ingredients, Novel Food Additives, New Varieties of Food-Related Products and Overseas manufacturers of imported food) and other comprehensive food safety solutions for domestic and overseas enterprises and institutions in food industry.

Please feel free to contact us: +86 10 68869850, E-mail: global_info@foodmate.net