Member Article

Moving faster than many expected, the National People’s Congress of China promulgated the amended Food Safety Law (“2015 Food Safety Law”) on April 24, 2015. The 2015 Food Safety Law will be effective on October 1, 2015. The 2015 Food Safety Law is regarded as the most stringent food safety regulation in the history of China. As regulatory authorities work to implement the law, food industry companies doing business in China should expect to see proposed rules from the China Food and Drug Administration (“CFDA”) and other agencies.

The last version of the Food Safety Law was passed in February 2009 (“2009 Food Safety Law”). The 2009 Food Safety Law was designed to prevent food safety scandals, such as the milk scandal in 2008, in which an estimated 290,000 infants in China were fed contaminated milk that was later found to have been adulterated with melamine, a toxic industrial compound. The contaminated milk caused the death of several infants and caused kidney damage in other infants. This scandal was a devastating blow to the Chinese dairy industry and raised food safety concerns to an unprecedented level.

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