Recently, the National Health Commission and the State Administration for Market Regulation have issued the newly revised National Food Safety Standard Beverages (GB 7101-2022) (hereinafter referred to as the new GB), which will replace the 2015 version of the standard and will be implemented on December 30, 2022. The new GB modified the physical and chemical indicator requirements of some products, and put forward new requirements for the labeling of beverages with bacteria added, and clarified that the content of lactic acid bacteria shall be marked on the label for live bacteria (unsterilized) products with lactic acid bacteria added.
The new GB modified the terms and definitions, and clarified that beverages are products made from one or more edible raw materials, adding or not adding auxiliary materials, food additives and food nutritional fortification substances, with mass fraction of alcohol content not exceeding 0.5%, which is rationally packaged for direct drinking or drinking with water, such as carbonated beverages, fruit/vegetable juice and its beverages, protein beverages and solid beverages. The new GB clarified that it is not applicable to packaged drinking water.
In recent years, there have been more and more solid beverages and innovative products in the market. Seen from the food safety supervision and sampling inspection information released by the local market supervision departments, some solid beverages have repeatedly failed the total plate count. The total plate count beyond the standard value indicates that the enterprise has not strictly controlled the sanitary conditions of the production and processing process as required, and the cleaning and disinfection of packaging containers are not in place. In addition, it may also be related to the poor sealing of product package and improper control of storage and transportation conditions. According to the relationship between the total plate count and human health, the new GB revised the microbiological limit requirements for beverage products based on the current production status of the industry, in which the m value (the minimum value) required for the total plate count in solid beverages was revised to 10000, and clarified that the indicator of total plate count is not applicable to live bacteria (unsterilized) beverages with aerobic and facultative anaerobic bacteria added.
The new GB also revised the applicable physical and chemical indicator product types. For example, the scope of application of zinc, copper and iron indicator requirements was modified from "metal canned fruit/vegetable juice beverage" to "metal canned fruit/vegetable juices and their beverages"; in order to conform to the current food safety standard for the classification of products, the new GB replaced the concept of "concentrated beverage" with "beverage syrup".
In recent years, as consumers' awareness of probiotic products has increased, consumer demand has continued to expand, and the probiotic beverage market has developed rapidly. Among them, the current mainstream probiotic products are solid beverages.
The new GB modified "lactic acid bacteria beverage products" to "products with bacteria added", requiring products with bacteria added specially to be marked with live bacteria (unsterilized) or non-viable (sterilized) types. It is clearly required that "the content of lactic acid bacteria" shall be marked on the label for live bacteria (unsterilized) products with lactic acid bacteria added, and the number of lactic acid bacteria in the live bacteria (unsterilized) beverage products with lactic acid bacteria added shall be ≥10^6 CFU/g (mL), and newly added that for the product requiring to be refrigerated or frozen for storage and transportation, the storage and transportation conditions shall be marked on the label.
Overall, the new GB is more scientific and reasonable, which is of great significance to boosting the food safety level and high-quality development of the beverage industry.
Source: China Consumer News
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