Draft Amendment to the Food Safety Law Released for Public Comment: Changes Companies Need to Watch

Recently, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) formulated the "Food Safety Law of the People's Republic of China (Draft Amendment for Public Comment)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Draft for Comment") and released it for public comment. The current Food Safety Law has 10 chapters, 14 sections and 154 articles, while the Draft for Comment has 10 chapters, 16 sections and 191 articles, of which 61 are basically retained, 37 are newly added and 93 are revised. Foodmate has sorted out the key revision changes most closely related to companies, to help companies assess them in advance and respond well.

01

Smart regulation written into law: key risk links must "install monitoring and connect to regulators"

The Draft for Comment adds Article 9, which specifies that people's governments at or above the county level shall accelerate the application of "Internet + artificial intelligence" in the field of food safety. When it comes to corporate obligations, the newly added Article 65 requires food production and operation enterprises to install monitoring equipment at key risk links of food production and operation, and to connect real-time surveillance video information to the information system of the market supervision and administration department of the local people's government at or above the county level.

At the same time, Article 137 grants regulatory authorities the power to carry out online inspections, dynamic monitoring and evidence verification through the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, video surveillance and other means, and off-site inspections will become the norm. Article 161 already provides supporting penalties: those who fail to rectify within the time limit shall be fined not less than 5,000 yuan but not more than 30,000 yuan.

02

Staffing, clear responsibilities and record-keeping: new requirements for food safety directors, chain headquarters and entrusted production

First, staffing. Article 54 refines the current law's "equip food safety management personnel" into "equip food safety management personnel such as food safety directors and food safety officers in accordance with regulations", and adds a requirement for enterprises to establish food safety training and assessment records, truthfully recording the time, content, participants and assessment results of training. Online food trading platform operators (Article 103) and school canteens (Article 94) are subject to the same type of requirements, among which the food safety director of a school canteen shall be held by a member of the unit's management.

Second, clarifying primary responsibility. The newly added Article 48 requires group companies of food production enterprises, headquarters of food sales chain enterprises and headquarters of catering service chain enterprises to have corresponding management capabilities and to bear management responsibility for the food safety of their subsidiaries, branches and outlets. The newly added Article 46 draws the qualification threshold and reporting obligations for entrusted production: the entrusting party shall obtain a food or food additive production and sales license or file for the sale of prepackaged food or food additives only, and the entrusted party shall obtain a food or food additive production license, and both parties shall report the entrusted production situation to the county-level market supervision and administration department where they are located.

In addition, the revision adds two filing obligations. First, Article 40, paragraph 3 specifies that those selling food additives shall file with the market supervision and administration department of the local people's government at or above the county level where they are located. Second, Article 81 brings infant and young child complementary foods under strict regulation as special foods, and Article 89 correspondingly requires infant and young child complementary food production enterprises to file with the market supervision and administration department of the people's government of the province, autonomous region or municipality directly under the Central Government on matters such as food raw materials, food additives, product formulas, production processes, labels and packaging materials that directly contact food, and the scope of filing is broader than under the current law.

Third, process record-keeping. The newly added Article 60 requires food production enterprises to establish a food production process control record system, truthfully recording contents such as product formulas, production material feeding, key link control, cleaning and disinfection of equipment and facilities, and handling of non-conforming products, and the retention period of records and vouchers is consistent with that of incoming inspection records. In addition, the newly added Article 45 establishes a system of real-name acceptance, acceptance inspection and machine security screening for postal enterprises and express delivery enterprises, to prevent food-related illegal activities through delivery channels.

03

Online food business set out in a separate section: responsibilities of platforms, livestreaming and cross-border e-commerce take effect

The Draft for Comment adds a dedicated section on "online food business". Article 100 stipulates that online food trading platform operators shall, within thirty working days after approval by the competent communications department, file with the provincial market supervision department and obtain a filing number, and shall set up branches or offices in the provincial regions where they conduct online food trading and file them, directly addressing the difficulties of out-of-locality enforcement and consumer rights protection caused by platforms' previous withdrawal of branches in other locations.

For operators on platforms, Article 104 requires platforms to verify and update the information of onboarded operators at least once every six months, and the retention period for registration and review records shall be no less than two years; Article 108 requires operators on platforms to continuously publicize license and filing information in a prominent position on the homepage, and to display prepackaged food label information on product detail pages. Article 101 includes livestreaming room operators, livestreaming marketers and livestreaming marketer service agencies within the scope of responsible entities. Article 110 also requires onboarded catering service providers to publicly disclose the processing and production process in real time in video form.

In terms of cross-border e-commerce, Article 109 specifies that cross-border e-commerce enterprises bear the primary responsibility for the safety of cross-border e-commerce imported food, food additives and food-related products, shall entrust qualified domestic entities to bear the recall responsibility and advertiser responsibility, and shall mark the statutory labeling matters in Chinese on the transaction page; if a cross-border e-commerce enterprise refuses to recall, the platform shall suspend services and carry out the recall first. This is also the first time China has made provisions on the safety of cross-border e-commerce imported food at the legal level.

04

Dedicated section on school food safety: principal (kindergarten head) responsibility system becomes a legal requirement

The Draft for Comment adds a dedicated section on "school food safety" with eight articles in total. Article 92 establishes the principal (kindergarten head) responsibility system, specifying that the principal (kindergarten head) is the first person responsible for school food safety. Article 93 requires schools operating canteens independently to adhere to the principle of public welfare, and canteens of rural compulsory education schools implementing nutrition improvement programs shall not be contracted out or entrusted for operation. Articles 95 and 96 respectively require that bulk food ingredients be jointly inspected by two or more persons, and that a qualification review and exit mechanism for contracted operating enterprises be established with no subcontracting or re-contracting allowed. Article 98 requires primary and secondary schools and kindergartens to establish a system of accompanying students at meals for centralized dining, and those that fail to do so shall be ordered by the education department to rectify within a time limit.

05

Labels and commercial promotion tightened: two types of "claims" explicitly prohibited

On labels, Article 74 adjusts "shelf life" to "shelf life or shelf-life expiry date", keeping it consistent with the provisions of GB 7718-2025, and specifies that labels of food processed under entrustment shall also indicate the name, address and contact information of the entrusting party and the name and address of the entrusted party. Article 78 adds two restrictions: first, labels and instructions shall not contain false or misleading content; second, unless clearly provided by laws, administrative regulations or national food safety standards, prepackaged food labels shall not claim to be for consumption by specific groups such as minors, pregnant women and breastfeeding women.

In terms of claim management, the newly added Article 87 specifies that, unless clearly provided by national food safety standards, foods other than infant formula foods and infant and young child complementary foods shall not claim to be for infants and young children; infant formula foods and infant and young child complementary foods shall not claim to fully or partially replace breast milk. The label statement for health foods is adjusted from "this product cannot replace drugs" to "health foods are not drugs and cannot replace drugs in treating diseases".

In terms of commercial promotion, Article 116 adds a provision that no organization or individual may use entrusted inspection data, results and reports to engage in exaggerated promotion, advertising and other marketing activities, may not publish entrusted inspection data, results and reports without authorization, and may not forge, alter or use forged or altered quality inspection and testing reports and other quality certification documents.

06

Adjustment of legal liability: alleviating "heavy penalties for minor violations" while imposing "penalties on individuals"

In response to the widely reported problem of "heavy penalties for minor violations", the Draft for Comment changes many provisions of the form "where the value of goods is less than 10,000 yuan, a fine of not less than X yuan but not more than Y yuan shall also be imposed" to fines calculated as a multiple of the value of goods, and specifies that where the value of goods is less than 1,000 yuan, it shall be calculated as 1,000 yuan; Articles 150, 152 and 153 and others have all made such adjustments.

On the other hand, the newly added Article 172 implements "penalties on individuals": for those who intentionally commit illegal acts, whose illegal acts are of a vile nature, or whose illegal acts cause serious consequences, the legal representatives, principal persons in charge, food safety directors and food safety officers of enterprises, centralized dining units, online food trading platforms and others shall be fined not less than one time but not more than ten times the income they obtained from their unit in the previous year. Article 140 also establishes a food safety credit management system, listing entities with serious circumstances in the list of entities with serious dishonesty and implementing cross-departmental disciplinary measures for dishonesty, and those meeting the conditions may apply for credit repair in accordance with the law.

07

Summary

Overall, the Draft for Comment makes systematic adjustments along three main lines: smart regulation, tightening primary responsibility, and strengthening regulation of key areas, and adds two sections on "school food safety" and "online food business", with enterprises' obligations substantially increased in areas such as staffing, process records, information disclosure and video surveillance. At present, the draft is still at the public comment stage, the effective date has not yet been determined, and the final provisions shall be subject to the officially released text.

Foodmate reminds food production and operation enterprises to carry out compliance self-inspections in advance against the Draft for Comment: first, sort out the configuration and networking plans for monitoring equipment at key risk links; second, check the staffing of food safety directors and food safety officers and their training and assessment records; third, improve production process control records and entrusted production reports; fourth, check the claims and wording about "specific groups" and "infants and young children" in labels and promotion. It also suggests continuously following subsequent legislative developments and actively participating in feedback on the draft.