The production date is the content of mandatory labeling of prepackaged foods required by the Food Safety Law and GB 7718 National Food Safety Standard General Standard for the Labeling of Prepackaged Foods. In the actual food circulation process, there are a lot of cases in which an enterprise was penalized by the market supervision department at all levels because the labeling of production date did not meet requirements. Antion summarized the requirements of current regulations and standards on the production date of prepackaged foods, including definition, marking position, marking sequence, labeling of several special circumstances and relevant penalties, for enterprises reference.

Definition

Production date, also called manufacture date, means date on which the food becomes the final product, including packaging date or filling date, i.e., the date on which the food is placed (filled) into the package or container in which it will be ultimately sold.

Marking position

In the actual production operation process, the production date is usually marked by means of jet coding. Although GB 7718 requires the font size of mandatory marking contents should not be less than 1.8mm, because of the jet ink and packaging material characteristics, enterprises should ensure the font size and that the production date can be clearly displayed, easy to identify.

If the production date is in the form of "see part of the package", the specific location should be specified. For example, it can be marked as "see the spray code at the bottle mouth for production date", "see the spray code at the bottom of the package for production date". The requirement also makes it easier for consumers to find date labeling quickly, especially on products with larger packages.

Marking sequence

The production date should be marked in the order of year, month and day. If other orders are used, the order should be clearly marked on the label, for example, production date (month/day/year). Enterprises can voluntarily choose delimiters (such as space, slash, hyphens and period) to separate dates. The year should generally be marked with 4 digits, and the small package can also be marked with 2 digits; the month and day should be marked with 2 digits.

Other labeling requirements

1. The production date cannot be affixed to the complete product label, nor can it be reprinted on the original label, or the original production date can be arbitrarily changed. If the enterprise has sufficient reasons and meets the requirements of laws and regulations, it can realize the revision of the production date by pasting the product label as a whole, such as covering all the information on the package information page. Exceptions are made for imported health food and foods for special dietary uses, which do not allow any form of affixing.

2. The labeling of production date for imported foods without production date marked - due to the differences in domestic and international regulations, some imported prepackaged foods may not have production date labeling, only shelf life and best before date. In this case, enterprises can calculate the production date according to the two dates, and mark it on the product label in accordance with the requirements of the relevant regulations and standards.

3. The labeling of production date for sub-packaged foods - the second article of the Reply of the Ministry of Health on the Processing of Food Sub-packaging and the Supervision and Management of Sub-packaged Foods stipulates that "the production date of stereotyped packaged foods in simple sub-packaging or with a small amount of other ingredients added should be marked according to the sub-packaging date".

4. The labeling of production date for gift boxes containing multiple individual prepackaged foods - if the gift box is a prepackaged food and contains individual prepackaged foods with different production dates, the production date may not be marked on the gift box if the gift box is easy to open and identify or the production date of each individual prepackaged food can be clearly identified through the outer package. Otherwise, enterprises can choose either of the following methods to mark:

1) The earliest production date of the individual prepackaged food in the gift box;

2) The date the gift box is formed;

3) Mark the production date of each individual prepackaged food on the gift box one by one.

Penalties regarding production date

In the actual production and operation process, the most common violation of the labeling production date is to alter or fabricate the production date to extend the shelf life. If so, as required by Article 124 of the Food Safety Law, the false labeling of the production date does not constitute a crime, the county and above level food safety supervision and management department will confiscate the illegally gained benefits/foods illegally produced or traded/and the tools, equipment and food raw material used for illegal production or trading as well. The manufacturer or trader is also subject to a fine between RMB50,000 to 100,000 if the total value of the commodity is less than RMB10,000, or a fine between 10 and 20 times if the total value of the commodity exceeds RMB10,000; for severe violation of the law, the business license of food producers and traders will be revoked.

Production date is an important part of product information transmission to consumers. It must be clear, true and accurate. Production and operation enterprises should not take risks for the sake of temporary profits, after all, production date violations in most cases are closely related to the expiration date of the shelf life, which is closely related to food safety. From the view of the Food safety Law, the penalties related to food safety problems are comprehensive, and the severity of punishment is also big. Therefore, compliance marking is imperative.

Source: Antion

Note: This article is compiled by Antion, please indicate our source if reprint it.