Health Food Name with Function Presentation will be Forbidden - Regulatory News - Food & Food Contact Materials

In order to avoid the misunderstanding caused by the function presentation in the health food name, and in accordance with the supervision requirements of health food in the new Food Safety Law, China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) released a Notice on Further Stipulates the Health Food Naming on 27 August 2015.

The Stipulation in the Notice

Health food which declares the function in the name will be unapproved by CFDA from now on.
Applicant shall apply the product name alteration before 31st December, 2015, if the approved health food contains function presentation in the names.
Health food with function presentation in the name will not be allowed to be produced since 1st June, 2016.

Based on the statistics, more than one thousand approved domestic and imported health food in China need to apply the product name alteration before 31 December 2015, which will cause significant influence on product distribution in Chinese market. Health food manufacturers who have involved products are recommended to take action at the earliest.

In fact, the Notice was issued to revise the Regulation named Stipulation on Health Food Naming, as function presentation in the product name is allowed to be used in the previous regulation. Meanwhile, health food manufacturers are still encouraged to focus on the Forbidden Description List (see below chart) in the previous regulation that is still valid.

S.N.	Type	Examples of descriptive terms
1	Deceptive	"Ancestral(祖傳)", "Secret(秘制)", "Purified(精制)" and so on
2	Exaggerated	"Special effect(特效)", "Treasure(寶)", "Magical effect (神效)" and so on
3	Grade	"Best(最)", "Champion(第一)", "High-grade(高級)" and so on
4	Prevention and curing of diseases	“Prescription(處方)”, “Medicine”, “Cure(治療)” and so on
5	Personal name	“Hua Tuo(華佗)”, “Bian Que(扁鵲)”, “Shizhen Li(李時珍)” and so on
6	Region	“China(中國)”, “Huaxia(華夏)” and so on
7	Difficultly understood	“Nanometer(納米)”, “Gene(基因)”, “Space(太空)” and so on
8	Superstitious	“Sex(性)”, “God(神)”, “Immortal(仙)” and so on
9	Body organ	“Brain(腦)”, “Eye(眼)”, “Heart(心)” and so on
10	Misleading	Homophonic words , Words which are similar in form

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