As of June 30, 2023, 4 novel food have been approved by European Union (EU) in the second quarter of 2023. These are Cellobiose; 6’-Sialyllactose sodium salt produced by derivative strains of E. coli BL21(DE3); Iron milk caseinate?, and Aqueous ethanolic extract of Labisia pumila

On July 4, 2023, the European Union Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) pulished the preliminary opinion on water-soluble zinc salts (SCCS/1657/23). The deadline for comments was set for 8 September 2023.

On June 16, 2023, the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) intended to list anthracene (CAS: 120-12-7), 2-bromopropane (CAS: 75-26-3), and dimethyl hydrogen phosphite (CAS: 868-85-9) as known to the state to cause cancer.

According to the information released by the Center for Food Evaluation, State Administration for Market Regulation and the Special Food Information Query Platform, in the first half of 2023, State Administration for Market Regulation issued a total of 670 health food (dietary supplement) registration approvals, 358 of which are new health food products.

On June 14, 2023, the State Administration for Market Regulation released four official documents, including Health Food Raw Materials Directory of Nutrient Supplement (2023 Edition), Health Function Directory of Allowing Nutrition Supplement Claims (2023 Edition), Health Food Raw Materials Directory - Soybean Isolated Protein, and Health Food Raw Materials Directory - Whey Protein. On July 5, 2023, the supporting technical specifications and interpretation documents (draft for soliciting opinions) of the above-mentioned documents were released for public opinion. Comments are welcomed before August 4, 2023.

On July 18, 2023, we hosted a free webinar in Chinese and Japanese on health food registration and filing in China as well as an analysis of the difficulties. A lot of questions were raised during the webinar. CIRS Group has collected questions on health food and made a Q&A summary as follows:

South Korean Ministry of Environment (MoE) has published two K-REACH registration support programs to help enterprises register under K-REACH. Both programs shall meet the following requirements: Substances are manufactured/imported in annual volumes of 100 to 1,000 tonnes; Registration consortium to complete registration by November 2024; Registration consortium has selected its only representative (OR); and registration consortium includes two or more SMEs that are ‘active’ members

On June 28, 2023, the UK published the REACH (Amendment) Regulations 2023 (No.722) which extends the legislative deadlines for registrants to submit information by three years. The REACH (Amendment) Regulations shall enter into force on July 19, 2023. That is to say, from July 19, 2023, there will be new transitional periods and dossier submission deadlines will be extended to October 27, 2026, October 27, 2028, and October 27, 2030, based on different tonnage bands.

On June 9, 2023, the Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) of the European Union issued final opinion on salicylic acid (SCCS/1646/22). The preliminary opinion on the safety of salicylic acid in cosmetics was released on December 15, 2022.

India’s Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs published Circular No.15/2023-Customs in which mandatory additional qualifiers in import/export declarations shall be made such as scientific names, IUPAC names, brand names as applicable, to aid in reducing queries and improve the efficiency of assessment. The Shipping Bill (Electronic Integrated Declaration and Paperless Processing) Regulations 2019 was scheduled to be implemented on July 1, 2023, and has been postponed until October 1, 2023, because of strong opposition from the chemical industry.