Global Food

On January 4, 2018, in order to do well in food safety sampling and inspection according to the law, scientifically and normatively, China Food and Drug Administration formulated and issued the food safety sampling and inspection plan in 2018 according to “Food Safety Law of the People’s Republic of China” and “‘13th Five-Year’ national food safety plan”, combining with the actual food safety inspection work.

In 2018, the food safety sampling and inspection plan covers 33 major food categories, 137 food species and 218 food subclasses, and a total of 1.3505 million batches will be sampled and inspected. The General Administration will sample and inspect 28.5 thousand batches, of which 20.5 thousand batches are planned sampling and inspection, and 8 thousand batches are special sampling and inspection. The major food enterprises above the scale and national large-scale wholesale markets with large market share shall be sampled and inspected. It includes infants and young children formula food, dairy products, meat products, beverages, wines, edible agricultural products and other 30 categories. For food processing products, edible oil, grease and its products, dairy products, beverages, wines, biscuits, roasted foods, nut products and other varieties, a certain amount of online shopping food and imported food will be sampled and inspected.

The provincial bureaus will sample and inspect 492 thousand batches, of which 227 thousand batches of special transfer payments will be made by the General Administration, and 265 thousand batches will be matched by each provincial bureau. The production food enterprises and large catering enterprises which obtained the production licenses in the province (district or city) will be mainly inspected and sampled. There are 31 categories including foods for special dietary uses, health food, food processing products, edible oils, grease and its products, meat products, dairy products, beverages, bee products and catering food, etc..

The total amount of sampling and inspection for edible agricultural products by all cities and county bureaus in China will be 830 thousand batches. The sampling and inspection species by municipal and county-level bureau shall, as far as possible, cover vegetables, fruits, livestock and poultry meat, aquatic products, eggs and other edible agricultural products produced and sold within the administrative areas. The intensity of sampling and inspection for small workshops, small vendors, small-sized catering shall be increased appropriately.

On January 18, 2018, in order to further standardize the supervision and inspection work for food safety, Food and Drug Administration organized to formulate the “Detailed rules for the implementation of the food safety sampling and inspection plan (2018 edition)”, which put forward unified requirements for the applicable scope, product species, inspection basis, sampling and inspection requirements, judgment principles and conclusion of the supervision and inspection for the 33 categories of foods.

Food classification shall be judged according to the basic standards of food classification system, when it is judged according to basic standards (GB 2760, GB 2761, GB 2762, GB 2763, GB 29921). For example, the determination of the contaminants of sesame shall be attributed to nuts and seeds food according to the food classification system of GB 2762; for another example, the determination of celery contaminants shall be attributed to stem vegetables according to the food classification system of GB 2762, while the determination of its pesticide residues items shall be attributed to leaf vegetables according to the food classification system of GB 2763.