Singapore Allows Use of Five New Health Claims on Food Products
The five additional claims, which cover calcium and vitamin D, sodium, saturated fat and trans fat, fibre and dietary fibre, require basic nutrition criteria to meet before an application can be made for their use, and details about the claims can be found on the AVA’s website.
10/06/09 Singapore’s recent decision to allow five new nutrient specific diet-related health claims on certain food products will encourage research and development of healthy food products, international food and nutrition policy consultancy EAS has said.
Commenting on the Singapore Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority’s (AVA) decision to allow five additional claims on relevant food products that have been approved to carry the Health Promotion Board’s ‘Healthier Choice’ symbol, EAS Asia Regional Director Daniel Tsi said that the move shows the Authority is receptive to the growing health trends and developments among industry and consumers.
“This set of diet related health claims from Singapore is the first in Southeast Asia, a major step forward in opening up the use of health claims for food products based on scientific evidence,” said Dr Tsi. “The idea is to prevent misuse of the health claims and also for food industry to play a role in addressing main public health issues like high blood pressure, sufficient intake of fruits and vegetables. This will be a good incentive for companies to develop new and innovative healthy food products.”
The five additional claims, which cover calcium and vitamin D, sodium, saturated fat and trans fat, fibre and dietary fibre, require basic nutrition criteria to meet before an application can be made for their use, and details about the claims can be found on the AVA’s website.
As the regulatory environment across Asia and globally continues to evolve EAS has released two unique and easy-to-follow guides to help companies build successful regulatory strategies to enter the Asian and European nutritional product markets.
Both guides, developed by experts at the EAS Europe and Asian offices cover national and regional rules for health supplements, fortified and functional foods. These include rules for adding vitamins and minerals to food and health supplements; for the use of herbs and other functional ingredients; and analyses of the current labelling, claims and novel food regulatory environments in Europe and Asia.
Additionally, the EAS Asia guide ‘Marketing Health Supplements, Fortified & Functional Foods in Asia: Legislation & Practice’ covers the health supplement regulatory harmonisation process within the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and insight into the activities of international regulatory body Codex Alimentarius.
It’s national focus is on the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong SAR, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, and Brunei.
The 250-page EAS Europe guide ‘Marketing Food Supplements, Fortified and Functional Foods in Europe: Legislation and Practice’ gives a detailed analysis of European Union (EU) and national legislation, and regulations in the non-EU countries Russia, Turkey, Norway and Switzerland.
“Our guides have been developed in reaction to the many questions we are asked by clients wanting to market products in Europe and Asia,” said Dr Tsi, one of the authors of the EAS Asia guide. “It is the essential information to help companies understand and plan regulatory and marketing strategies for the European and Asia market.”
