The Thai government has announced several updates to the national food labelling regulations with food firms required to declare any use of genetically modified ingredients on food labels.
South Korea has announced new, tighter standards for food firms looking to label their products as being reduced or lower in sodium or sugar, starting with the nation’s most-consumed food product, ramen.
Taiwan has updated local food labelling laws to mandate the inclusion of specific information on the ‘minimum sales units’ of prepackaged foods, as well as added provisions to allow for the use of electronic labelling.
Japan will end the flexible enforcement of food labelling regulations that were implemented after the country was hit by torrential storms leading to a series of floods and landslides back in July.
Japan has banned the use of the terms ‘artificial’ and ‘synthetic’ to describe food additives on all food and beverage labels after consumer research found they were causing consumers to shun such products.
One-in-five food products in Japan are still not compliant with the country’s new food labelling standards, with time rapidly running out for manufacturers to make the changes.
Grocery prices would rise and consumers would be “worse off” if not for the recommendations to revise the Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill, Katherine Rich, CEO of New Zealand Food and Grocery Council (NZFGC) said.