Q: What are the forms of illegal action that expresses or implies disease prevention and treatment in food labeling?
A: The forms mainly include: (1) expressing or implying the effect of preventing or treating diseases; (2) expressing or implying the health care function of non-health food; (3) cheating or misleading customers; (4) claiming that food and health food can replace medicines, etc.
Q: What are the provisions of the Food Safety Law that prohibit false advertising in the labeling of prepackaged food (including health food)?
A: Article 71 of the Food Safety Law specifies that false content and disease prevention and treatment functions are prohibited on the labeling of food and food additives. The manufacturer should be responsible for the content of the labeling and instructions provided. Labeling and instructions for food and food additives should be clear and obvious, as well as production date, shelf life, etc. should be marked clearly and easy to identify. Food and food additives that do not conform to the contents of their labeling and instructions shall not be marketed.
Article 78 of the Food Safety Law specifies that the labeling and instructions of health food shall be true, consistent with the content of registration or filling, and shall indicate the suitable people, unsuitable people, and efficacy ingredients, or the symbolic ingredients and their amount, etc. The statement of “The product cannot replace medicine" should be marked. The functions and components of health food should be consistent with the labeling and instructions.
Q: What punishment measures are stipulated in the Food Safety Law for false claims or irregular labeling?
A: (1) According to Article 124 of the Food Safety Law, in violation of the provisions, the production and operation of food and food additives with a false production date, shelf life or exceed shelf life, health food, food for special medical purposes, infant formula milk powder which are not registered in accordance with regulations, or failure to organize production according to registered technical requirements; if it does not constitute a crime, the food and drug supervision and administration department at or above the county level shall confiscate the illegal income, food and food additives produced by an illegal production, and may also confiscate tools, equipment, raw materials, etc. used in illegal production; if the value of food and food additives produced in illegal production and operation is less than 10,000 yuan, a fine of 50,000 yuan up to 100,000 yuan shall be imposed; if the value is more than 10,000 yuan, a fine of more than ten times and less than 20 times of the value shall be imposed; if the circumstance is serious, the license shall be revoked
(2) According to Article 125 of the Food Safety Law, in violation of the provisions, the production and operation of unlabeled pre-packaged food and food additives, or labeling and instructions of food and food additives that do not comply with the law, and production of GM food that do not labeled as required, food and drug supervision and administration departments at or above the county level shall confiscate illegal income and illegal food and food additives, and may confiscate tools, equipment, raw materials, etc. used in illegal production and operation; if the value of illegal food and food additives are less than 10,000 yuan, a fine of more than 5,000 yuan and less than 50,000 yuan shall be imposed; if the value is more than 10,000 yuan, a fine of more than five times and less than ten times of the value shall be imposed; if the circumstance is serious, stopping production and business should be carried out until the license is revoked.
If there are defects in the labeling and instructions of the food and food additives, but it will not affect food safety and will not mislead consumers, the food and drug supervision and administration departments at or above the county level shall order corrections; if they refuse to make correction, a fine of less than 2,000 yuan shall be imposed.