Products must contain more than half milk to be labeled as dairy, new FDA regulations take effect in July

Rice noodles with no rice, papaya milk that may contain no milk - food labeling is a mess of chaos, and today the Food and Drug Administration announced the "Regulations Governing the Names and Labeling of Fresh Milk, Long-Life Milk, Flavored Milk, Milk Drinks and Milk Powder," under which milk content must exceed 50% in the future before a product can be labeled as flavored milk or a milk drink; otherwise it can only be treated as a general beverage; the milk powder content in modified milk powder must also reach half, and the content and product name must be clearly indicated in type at least 4 mm in size. The new regulations take effect on July 1, and violators can be fined 3 to 3 million yuan.

Milk powder must be labeled with its milk content

Domestic food fraud scandals have emerged one after another. Last year NewsMarket investigated five brands of adult milk powder sold on the market and found that many operators were blending in high-calorie maltodextrin as a filler, with the actual milk content at only 60% or 70%, yet the operators did not label the products as "modified," even deliberately confusing consumers with terms such as nutritional milk powder or nutritional modified.

The FDA's new draft regulation stipulates that the milk powder content of modified milk powder must exceed 50%, and the words "modified milk powder" and the percentage content must be clearly indicated on the packaging, with the length and width of the type no less than 4 mm, and it must be clearly different from the color of the outer packaging.

The percentage milk powder content is calculated by dividing the weight of the milk powder contained in the solid milk powder product by the total weight of the formula.

Flavored milk and milk drinks must have a milk content exceeding 50%

In the dairy section, the new announcement clearly defines flavored milk, milk drinks, long-life flavored milk and long-life milk drinks.

The raw materials of flavored milk must come from raw milk, fresh milk or long-life milk, while the raw materials of milk drinks may come from milk powder, but the content must all exceed 50%; in other words, if a product is labeled papaya milk in the future, its milk content must exceed 50%, otherwise it can only be treated as a general beverage.

In addition, operators must indicate the sterilization method on the packaging. For example, fresh milk is raw milk that is heated, sterilized, packaged and then refrigerated, to be drunk directly by consumers; long-life milk is raw milk or fresh milk that undergoes high-pressure or high-temperature sterilization and is packaged aseptically or in bottles (cans).

Chen Ming-ju, a professor in the Department of Animal Science and Technology at National Taiwan University, said in an interview with NewsMarket last year that both fresh milk and long-life milk are made by directly sterilizing raw milk, but fresh milk does not kill as many bacteria as long-life milk, so it must be drunk as soon as possible; long-life milk is also sterilized fresh milk, but because it kills 99.9% of bacteria, it can be kept at room temperature for a longer time.

Yang Yi-chen, acting section chief of the FDA, said that if operators' labeling does not comply, they can be fined 3 to 3 million yuan, and all products must be taken off the shelves and corrected. The new announcement is still in a buffer period, and direct fines will be imposed after it takes effect on July 1 this year.