Food ministry publishes flavourings Q&A guide for additives makers

The food and drug safety ministry said Thursday it has published a question-and-answer guide to food flavouring additives, to help manufacturers and importers of additives apply the rules correctly. The booklet, “Understanding Food Additive Flavourings: Frequently Asked Questions,” was made available on Oct. 29.

The ministry compiled the guide after flavouring-related queries accounted for 545 of the 7,812 questions on food additives submitted to the state petition portal over the past five years, and selected the most common ones for the booklet.

Flavourings are additives that give food its characteristic aroma or restore the original scent lost during manufacturing.

The guide covers how flavourings, flavouring preparations and mixed preparations are classified, the rules for natural and synthetic flavourings and how they may be used, the labelling requirements that apply to them, and how to classify an additive used to impart flavour.

The booklet is to be issued as an e-book, accessible on computers and mobile devices, on the ministry's website under the legislation and data section, in the resources and information collection menu.

The ministry said it expects the guide to deepen the industry's understanding of the standards, specifications and labelling rules for flavourings as well as the procedures for filing import declarations, and that it will keep working to make regulatory information on food additives easy to use in the field.