Last time we introduced the notifications of foreign foods exported to South Korea due to excessive metal foreign bodies and random inspections in the domestic market, and the regulatory policies adopted by the Korean regulatory authorities for such imported foods. This time we will introduce the regulatory requirements of South Korea and other foreign countries on metal foreign bodies, why the metal foreign body exceeds the standard, how to control and prevent.

1. Regulatory requirements for metallic foreign bodies in food in various countries

A. South Korea

In South Korea, the Food Code stipulates that metallic foreign bodies in food should be ≤10.0 mg/kg and the size should be ≤2.0mm, but this indicator only applies to raw materials processed by crushing and grinding processes, or powder, pill, liquid, paste and other products processed by crushing processes . The code also requires that such products must go through the process of removing metallic foreign bodies with a magnetic rod. Korean officials may also require the submission of a test report of metallic foreign bodies during import declaration.

B. China

China does not have quantitative requirements for metallic foreign bodies. The current domestic standard requires foreign bodies to be "No visible foreign bodies with normal vision."

C. United States

In the United States, "Foods, Adulteration Involving hard or Sharp Foreign Objects" (CPG Sec. 555.425) stipulates that foreign objects that are less than 7 mm, maximum dimension, rarely cause trauma or serious injury except in special risk groups such as infants, surgery patients, and the elderly, otherwise it is regarded as adulteration, but the weight of metal foreign objects is not specified.

2. Analysis of the causes of metallic foreign bodies detected in food

A. Mix into food through raw materials.

If the company enters the storage with unqualified raw materials or fails to carry out storage inspections, the raw materials are not cleaned, or not sealed during storage, and are put into production without magnetic rod filtration and other screening processes, metallic foreign objects may be mixed.

B.Mixed into food during the production process.

Poor personal hygiene management of the workshop and surrounding environment, employees, broken production equipment or negligence in management, etc. will also be mixed with foreign objects such as iron sheets and iron filings. In addition, in the grinding and crushing process for hard agricultural products, the continuous friction of metal materials such as ball mills and blades can also cause foreign matter such as iron powder to be mixed.

C. Inspection management is not in place.

Failure to strictly inspect semi-products or final products is also the reason why metallic foreign bodies are detected.

3. Summary

Through the monitoring of foreign early warning information in recent years, Foodmate has found that South Korea has repeatedly notified such unqualified information, but there are still many foreign companies that do not understand South Korea’s supervision of such foods, and the status of the products being notified by South Korea is still happens. In order to enable enterprises from various countries to export to South Korea smoothly in the future, we have summarized the following points for the reference of exporting enterprises:

A.There are differences in regulations between different countries. Enterprises should understand the target country’s regulatory requirements for their products before exporting, and control the products in accordance with the regulatory requirements.

If the product morphology classification belongs to the powder, pellet, liquid, paste and other products that should be controlled with metal foreign matter, the limit of metal foreign matter must be controlled.

B.The enterprise should strictly control the quality of the products from the raw material storage inspection to the production process of the product.

Through visual inspection (and magnet adsorption), check whether foreign matter is mixed into the raw materials; regularly inspect and maintain tools, equipment, etc. to ensure that they are not damaged; regularly check the sanitary condition of the supplier; before grinding the raw materials, remove possible foreign matter by sieve.; use X-ray machines and metal detectors to inspect the non-metal and metal substances in the product, including inspection of semi-finished products and final products; regularly clean the magnetic rods to ensure that they have sufficient magnetic force.

The above is the content that Foodmate has compiled for food companies exporting to South Korea. We hope it will be helpful to you.

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Please note: Original English article of Business Division of Food Safety and Regulatory Compliance of Global Foodmate, please indicate the source from the Global Foodmate if reprint.

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