Conclusion

From the historical evolution of the “novel food” regulation in China, a prom­ising tendency of deregulation is apparent in this field, for example, the can­cellation of the two-year trial period after granting approval, the introduction of the substantial equivalence principle, and the final target for the novel food material to promote its application in food production, in particular health food.

Interestingly, the low number of applications for 2018 indicates that the reform of administrative regulation did have an impact on businesses’ expecta­tions and thus their application choice. As a specialty in China, organizational arrangements for food safety regulation always change with biannual admin­istrative reform, in 1998, 2003, 2008, 2013, and 2018, in order to solve the problems of regulatory gaps and overlaps. As far as the latest one is concerned, the long-standing reform of food and drug regulation has been replaced by market regulation in a comprehensive way. That is to say, most food regulatory functions have been integrated into the newly established market regulation department, as the State Administration for Market Regulation at a central level.^[536] Despite this, the regulation of novel food material before its entrance into the market is still the responsibility of health department, which has been changed from the Ministry of Health into the National Health Commission.

The Regulation of “Novel Food” in China 145

When it comes to enforcement, the use of non-approved novel food mate­rial in food can be sanctioned administratively, including the revocation of production permission in serious cases. Also, the current Chinese practice in the food domain is characterized by governance.^[537] Therefore, the participation of different stakeholders also contributes to food safety in general and novel food material in particular. Taking punitive damage as an example, the Food Safety Law enables consumers to demand a seller pay ten times the price paid for a food that failed to satisfy a national mandatory food safety standard. So- called professional consumers have engaged aggressively to claim such punitive payments by targeting mistakes in labeling. In this context, the labeling of food containing novel food material without the alert required by correspond­ing administrative announcements has also been targeted by those professional consumers. For example, imported food may contain aloe as an ingredient. In China, only aloe vera gel has been approved to use as novel food material. Also, food products with this kind of aloe should be labeled with an alert to use with caution in pregnant women and infants. Therefore, imported food products which inform the consumer of aloe rather than aloe vera gel may be regarded as damaging consumers’ rights and subject to compensation. In view of this, the application of novel food material in China shall pay attention not only to the safety assessment for chemical substances but also labeling if an alert for consumption is required.

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