Proposal to require food supplements to register product declaration

(Chinhphu.vn) - In the face of a series of serious violations in the field of food safety in recent times, the Ministry of Health is proposing in the draft Decree amending Decree No. 15/2018/ND-CP, stipulating that food supplements must register a product declaration. Currently, this food is not in the group that must register a declaration, does not have to register advertising content, so there is a situation of exaggerating the effects.

Food supplements must register product declarations.

Specifically, the Department of Food Safety, Ministry of Health said that, implementing the direction of the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister in Official Dispatch No. 72/CD-TTg; Document No. 4633/VPCP-KGVX, Document No. 239/TB-VPCP and referring to the management experience of the United States, Japan, Australia, Canada, Korea, China..., the Drafting Committee and Editorial Team agreed to add to the draft Decree amending Decree No. 15/2018/ND-CP a number of contents, aiming to immediately resolve the limitations and shortcomings related to self-declaration, registration of product declarations, advertising, and post-inspection in accordance with the reality and management requirements in the new situation.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Health proposed a regulation that food supplements must register a product declaration. Currently, food supplements (a subgroup of functional foods) are not clearly stated in Decree No. 15/2018/ND-CP, are not specified in the food groups that must register a declaration, food supplements belong to the group of pre-packaged processed foods and are self-declared.

This leads to organizations and individuals declaring the wrong product groups, many health protection foods self-identify as dietary supplements and self-declare. In addition, because advertising content is not required to be registered with the competent authority, businesses exaggerate the features and uses of their products.

The Ministry of Health also proposed to regulate the responsibilities and tasks of the agency receiving self-declaration dossiers, giving opinions when receiving dossiers, posting dossiers on the electronic information page, developing and implementing a plan for post-auditing dossiers. If violations are detected, samples will be taken to monitor the quality and safety of food products circulating on the market.

Currently, there is no regulation for the management agency to control self-declared records, leading to many products that businesses self-declared, self-classified, and self-exaggerated product uses, and non-compliance with product quality. When inspections and checks were discovered, the products had already been circulated and consumed.

For health protection foods, medical nutritional foods, foods for special diets, supplementary foods, nutritional products for children up to 36 months old, based on the management models of some countries in the world such as China, Korea, Japan, the United States, etc., the Ministry of Health proposes to regulate the registration dossier for product declarations to control the coordination of ingredients, safety and quality indicators, product features and uses from the product research and development stage to registration before circulation on the market.

This draft also stipulates that organizations and individuals must announce product quality indicators applied according to the provisions of Article 23 of the Law on Product and Goods Quality on announcing applicable standards. Current regulations only require test certificates in the registration dossier for the declaration of testing of safety indicators without testing quality indicators, leading to businesses taking advantage of this and not complying with product quality as declared in the dossier.

Food supplement manufacturing facilities must meet GMP requirements

Also according to this draft, the regulation requires the application of a Certificate of food safety qualified facility meeting the requirements of good manufacturing practices (GMP), or the hazard analysis and critical control point system (HACCP), or the ISO 22000 food safety management system or the international food standard (IFS), or the global food safety standard (BRC), or the food safety system certification (FSSC 22000), or equivalent certification in production and business activities for establishments producing medical nutritional foods, foods for special diets, food supplements, and nutritional products for children up to 36 months old to improve the production conditions of these food products.

In order to comply with international practices, the Food Safety Law (amended) will supplement regulations on the authority of the agency that is granted the above certificates, standards and systems. However, while waiting for the Law to be amended, in order to improve the capacity of production facilities to improve product quality, the Ministry of Health proposes to supplement this Draft Decree, stipulating that production facilities of the following product groups: medical nutritional foods, foods for special diets, supplementary foods, nutritional products for children up to 36 months of age must have a Certificate of food safety qualified facility meeting the requirements of the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point System (HACCP) or equivalent certification.

At the same time, the draft also adds regulations on the responsibility of the Ministry of Science and Technology in inspecting and supervising the third-party organization designated to issue the above certificates.

Regarding post-inspection, the draft specifically stipulates the development of plans, contents, frequency, planned post-inspections, unscheduled post-inspections, and the role of management agencies in implementing post-inspections.

For advertising participants, the draft stipulates strengthening the supervision of advertising on e-commerce platforms and social networks; inspecting and supervising advertising business units, advertising carriers, and influencers performing advertising; developing a code of professional conduct in advertising activities; and publicizing the relationship between influencers and advertising sponsors.

Hien Minh

Source: https://baochinhphu.vn/de-xuat-quy-dinh-thuc-pham-bo-sung-phai-dang-ky-ban-cong-bo-san-pham-10225070817550582.htm