Anlmal,Plant and Flsherles Quarantine and Inspection Agency

Labeling rules to be revised for food ingredients The Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said yesterday that the Agricultural Products Quality Control Act will be revised to include new labeling rules for imported food ingredients. The ministry's plans to reinforce labeling rules for imported food ingredients follow the government's proposals to introduce more stringent labeling rules for imported processed and semi-processed food items announced on Sunday. According to the government's plans, food importers will be obliged to specify the country of origin on all imported items and whether or not a product has been produced by a subcontractor on labels that are more than half the size of the trademarks. "A review of related laws has begun and the ministry plans to gather opinions through public meetings and conferences with industry representatives," an Agricultural Ministry official said. "The details have not been decided but regulations are likely to be strengthened in reflection of the public concern for food safety." Under current regulations, food manufacturers are only required to specify the country of origin for three categories of ingredients including the main ingredient, defined as the component that makes up more than 50 percent of the product. The other two categories are ingredients that make up the largest and the second largest parts of the product if there is no main ingredient, and the ingredient whose name is used in the product's name. In addition, an ingredient can be labeled simply as "imported" if the country from which the item is imported has changed more than three times in the past year or changed at an average of three times a year during the past three years. As such, the requirements for an item to be named as the main ingredient could be lowered and the number of ingredients whose country of origin needs to be specified is likely to be raised. However, such measures are likely to be met with strong resistance from food manufacturers, as they will result in rising production costs. Similar reasoning has been used to loosen labeling laws in the past. The Regulatory Reform Committee lowered the number of times the source country for a food ingredient needs to be changed to qualify for labeling as "imported" to three times a year from the previously enforced four. By Choi He-suk (cheesuk@heraldm.com) http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/