Market Access to Eliminate Hidden Hazards in Food Packaging

At the end of last year, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine issued production license certificates to the first 29 enterprises that passed the market access review for food-use plastic packaging, containers, tools and other products, covering all 39 products in the six major categories included in the first batch of market access implementation.

In August this year, food production enterprises, operators and consumers selecting food-use plastic packaging, containers, tools and other products should make sure to choose products marked with the "QS" mark and number, otherwise they will face heavy penalties of 50,000 to 200,000 yuan.

Two major factors cause packaging to fail inspection

Abuse of raw materials and additives. Legitimate enterprises do well in selecting materials and in meeting the requirements of relevant national standards. But some small enterprises (workshops), purely to reduce costs and pursue economic gain, artificially lower the grade of raw materials and in production fail to strictly control product quality as required by national standards, using prohibited industrial-grade raw materials, auxiliaries and additives or even recycled materials in processing and production, so that hygiene and physicochemical indicators such as evaporation residue and heavy metals far exceed limits. Unqualified raw materials or the excessive or over-limit use of additives result in poor product performance such as load-bearing capacity and strength, visible impurities, an odour and tearing at the slightest pull. The leaching of harmful substances such as heavy metals, paraffin wax and talc directly endangers human health through food, causing chronic poisoning and, in severe cases, cancer, birth defects and mutations.

Confusion and absence of product standards. For example, the GB9688—1988 "Hygienic Standard for Polypropylene Moulded Products for Food Packaging" followed by enterprises producing single-use non-foamed plastic tableware is a hygiene standard and does not contain product performance indicators, so comprehensive testing is impossible and no overall evaluation of product quality can be made. If GB18006.1—1999 "General Technical Conditions for Single-Use Degradable Tableware" is cited, but the product is not degradable, it cannot be applied wholesale either. According to a survey by the Beijing Environmental Protection Tableware Alliance, more than half of the country's single-use tableware enterprises currently have no production standard to follow or do not follow the standards they have.

Under the new review requirements, if there is no directly applicable national or industry standard, enterprises must ask relevant experts to draft an enterprise standard and report it for local filing and registration, and carry out testing according to the standard they follow as soon as possible, otherwise the product cannot apply for QS. In addition, PVC cling film is already used in large quantities on the market but has no national or industry standard and was not included in the scope of the 39 products applying for certification this time, thus planting hidden risks for its development.

Market access plugs quality loopholes

At the end of August, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine will investigate and penalize unlicensed production of products included in the market access scope. Licensed enterprises may produce normally; enterprises that have not yet obtained a license must mark their products as "trial products" and may only leave the factory for sale after passing inspection by a designated testing institution; enterprises that have not yet submitted a review application may not produce, operators may not deal in, and food production enterprises may not use their products. Those who sell or use in business activities listed products that have not obtained a production license will be fined 50,000 to 200,000 yuan, with illegal gains confiscated or criminal liability pursued in accordance with the law. Products expressly prohibited by the state, such as single-use foamed plastic tableware, will be completely eliminated and may not be certified, produced, sold or used.

To advance the market access work, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine set up four review departments in Beijing, Jinan, Hangzhou and Guangzhou, designated eight testing institutions and trained a group of reviewers. In view of the reality that China has many producers of the relevant products, of small scale and with poor management and uneven product quality, supervision will support a group of enterprises to grow bigger and stronger, bring a group of enterprises with unstable quality up to standard, shut down and eliminate a group of enterprises that do not have quality assurance conditions, and crack down on a group of illegal dens specializing in producing counterfeit and shoddy products.

This year, supervision by quality inspection departments will highlight four priorities: priority products, namely additives, packaging, containers, tools and other products with a relatively large impact on food safety; priority regions, namely areas where producers of the relevant products are concentrated, working closely with their governments and concentrating efforts on steadily raising the product quality of most enterprises; priority enterprises, namely small enterprises and small workshops without quality assurance capability, as well as those enterprises and dens specializing in producing inferior products; and priority issues, namely abuse of food additives, use of toxic and harmful non-food raw materials to process food, and illegal use of recycled plastics to process food packaging containers and tools.

The implementation of the market access system for food packaging will not only fundamentally raise the overall level of the food packaging industry, but will also directly plug the loopholes in food packaging quality.

The future fate and direction of enterprises

The implementation of mandatory QS production licensing will reshuffle food packaging enterprises, whose fate will take three directions: one third of enterprises, with sound management systems and up-to-standard product quality, will obtain QS licenses easily, and these are basically large enterprises; one third of enterprises, with imperfect management systems and unstable product quality, will face rectification, and their management costs will increase; and one third of enterprises, with chaotic management, outdated technology and processes and extremely poor product quality, will find it very difficult to obtain a QS license even after rectification and will face elimination.

Based on the Beijing Kaifa Environmental Protection Technology Consulting Center's inspections and understanding of many enterprises, and in the light of the relevant requirements for applying for certification, three suggestions are put forward: first, the leaders of production enterprises must attach great importance to the matter, keep timely track of policy changes and the relevant certification application requirements, and prepare early to ensure sufficient time for rectification and for review work to be carried out; second, do not harbour any hope of getting lucky — rectification must be carried out strictly in accordance with the 53 items required by the general review rules and the detailed rules, and under the guidance of experts and professional departments the past loose operating model with unstable quality must be fundamentally changed, so as to be responsible for consumers' health and for the long-term development of the enterprise; third, food packaging operators must actively seek lawful suppliers and choose the products of licensed enterprises, so as to prevent a too-slow switch from adversely affecting their own business.

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn), original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-362336.html