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More ingredient information on food labels under new law
Existing composition and labelling legislation will be updated for improvement in five areas as part of the government's ongoing efforts to enhance food safety and consumer interest, a Health, Welfare and Food Bureau spokesman said today (May 13).
Elaborating the changes under the Food and Drugs (Composition and Labelling) (Amendment) Regulation 2004, the spokesman said the amendment legislation would require food labels to declare the presence of eight types of substances which are known to cause allergy in some people. Existing legislation does not require labelling of such substances.
These substances are: cereals containing gluten; crustacean and crustacean products; eggs and egg products; fish and fish products; peanuts, soybeans and their products; milk and milk products (lactose included); tree nuts and nut products; and sulphite in concentrations of 10 parts per million or more.
In addition, the amendment regulation would require the declaration in the food labels of both the functional class and the exact name or code of the food additive used. The law currently allows for labelling of either the name or general category.
The spokesman stressed the proposed labelling amendments, which would be published in the Gazette tomorrow (May 14) and tabled at the Legislative Council on May 19, were made with reference to the recommendations of Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex), the international authority for setting food related standards.
To enhance flexibility for the trade while making it clearer to consumers in the marking of "best before" or "use by" days on the food labels, the spokesman said that the present restriction on the marking sequence in which the year, the month and the day appeared would be lifted but the exact sequence had to be clearly declared in both Chinese and English.
Drinks with alcoholic strength by volume of more than 1.2 per cent would continue to be exempted from the requirement of labelling the ingredients. In addition, wines, liqueur wines, sparkling wines, aromatised wines, fruit wines, sparkling fruit wines, and other drinks with an alcoholic strength by volume of 10 per cent or more from labelling of durability period would be exempted from the labelling requirement.
Lastly, the restriction on the inclusion of additives in condensed or evaporated milk and butter would be relaxed according to the proposed changes.
The amendment regulation is expected to come into operation on July 9 this year.
To allow for sufficient time to the trade to prepare for the changes and taking into account the maximum shelf-lives for most pre-packaged foods, a grace period of 18 months would be allowed for the legislative changes to take effect, the spokesman added.
Ends/Thursday, May 13, 2004
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