In July, 2017, 9 Chinese authorities including the Food Safety Office of the State Council jointly issued the Notice of Rectification Work on Fraud and False Propaganda of Food and Health Food.Since the rectification work was carried out, local food regulatory authorities have collected many illegal evidences by conducting thorough investigations and random inspections, receiving complaints and reports from the public.
On 29 June, 2018, in order to further strengthen the supervision of food and health and to provide a friendlier environment for consumers, the rectification work was extended to the end of 2018.
Till the end of October, 2018, food regulatory authorities at all levels investigated and punished 49,000 cases of violations with goods worth 1.71 billion RMB and the police arrested 8,900 criminals. In addition, SAMR announced 10 cases of food fraud and false propaganda recently in December, 2018.
Global Foodmate analysed the published cases and found out the main methods for fraud and false propaganda of food and health food are as follows:
1. Conducting food production and operation activities without permission
2. Selling imported prepackaged food without Chinese label
3. Producing foods that are not within the approved contents
4. Unauthorised changes of production processes
5. Illegal addition of non-edible substances such as drugs
6. Illegal promotion via such as conference, health lectures, expert hotline, internet, TV, radio, etc.
7. Claims of disease prevention or treatment
8. Labeling with false or illegal advertisement
9. Bogus products
10. Other violations
SAMR always be very stringent about the fraud and false propaganda of food and health food and will severely punish the violation activities. Meanwhile, authorities will promptly take control measures of the involved food and identify the source of the food. Authorities also supervise involved enterprises in order to promptly recall, suspend selling, destroy or conduct other measures to prevent the involved food re-entering into the market.
A recent case:
Illegal conference of promotion food held by Hongrui Lebang Company (hereafter referred to as ‘COMPANY’). In August, 2018, the COMPANY misled elderly people by ‘brain-wash’ promotion to believe that the collagen peptide solid drinks sold by COMPANY have the disease treatment function.
Illegal fact:
The activity violated Paragraph 1 of Article 8 of Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the People's Republic of China, which was deemed as false propaganda.
Penalty result:
A penalty of 1 million RMB was imposed to COMPANY. Given the fact that COMPANY did not cooperate with the investigation and deliberately concealed the illegal facts. Furthermore, the amount of money involved was huge and the social influence was bad. COMPANY was suspected of committing crimes and was transferred to the police department.
Advices to consumers by Global Foodmate:
Consumers should remember the main methods for fraud and false propaganda of food and health food summarised by Global Foodmate, and pay more attention to the popular science materials and public information issued by national regulatory authorities to learn relevant knowledge.
