Is healthy food ineffective? New guidance for the Food and Drug Administration

In order to ensure that healthy foods are effective, the Food and Drug Administration today announced the draft "Healthy Food Safety Test Guidelines". In addition to the need for stability tests for different packaging materials, different packaging capacity in the future also need stability tests to avoid healthy foods being ineffective before they expire, and they will be on the road as early as the end of the year.

The Food and Drug Administration of the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced the draft "Healthy Food Safety Test Guidelines" today, stating that when healthy food operators perform stability tests, they will conduct a 60-day preview review period to gather opinions from all walks of life when performing stability tests.

Zhou Peiru, director of the Food Organization Department of Food Pharmacy, said when he was interviewed today that there are currently 13 health food efficacy projects in Taiwan, and nearly 400 products have health food certification. In order to ensure that healthy foods can maintain certain effects within the validity period, employees will be required to undergo stability tests when applying.

Zhou Peiru said that according to current practice, if a healthy food business applies for stability test with packaging material "A" and passes, it can be made into various products of large and small sizes. Unless "B" is used as the packaging material, the stability test needs to be redone. However, considering that small packages can be eaten quickly when opened, large packages cannot be eaten immediately after being opened, and it is easier to change quality. There are also differences in stability and storage capacity. Therefore, refer to international practices and set this guideline.

Zhou Peiru pointed out that this guideline clearly states that even for the same packaging material, operators must conduct stability tests based on the largest and smallest specifications. For example, after the minimum specification 60 tablets and the maximum specification 600 tablets are completed, there is no need to do it again if there is an additional 200 tablets in the future, in case the public spends money to buy healthy food, but due to stability and other reasons, there will be insufficient effective ingredients and a waste of time.

Zhou Peiru said that the new guidelines will be on the road as early as the end of the year. Employees who have already undergone stability trials do not need to re-made them, but if they want to add different packaging materials or specifications, they must be supplemented, otherwise they will not be certified for healthy food.