On October 10, the State Administration for Market Regulation publicly solicited opinions from the public on the "Food Safety Law of the People's Republic of China (Revised Draft for Comments)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Draft for Comments"). This is a large-scale systematic revision of the Food Safety Law since it was promulgated in 2009 and significantly revised in 2015.
For the first time, new business formats such as live streaming and delivery of goods have been included in the scope of adjustment.
The campus food safety catering is large, the dining groups are sensitive, and the society is concerned about it. The "Draft for Comments" adds a special section on "school food safety", establishes a principal (director) responsibility system, and establishes a centralized meal companionship system for primary and secondary schools and kindergartens.
"The current Food Safety Law stipulates relatively principles for campus food safety. Departmental regulations or normative documents alone are not authoritative enough and have insufficient rigid constraints. It is necessary to further enhance the legislative level and strengthen the rigid legal constraints. In recent years, in the process of promoting special rectification of prominent issues of 'campus meals', we have explored and formed a set of effective work measures, and it is necessary to upgrade them to institutional regulations." said the person in charge of the Food Coordination Department of the State Administration for Market Regulation.
New business formats such as online retail, online ordering, live streaming e-commerce, and cross-border e-commerce are constantly emerging, and food safety issues in these new formats are becoming increasingly prominent. The "Draft for Comments" adds a special section on "Online Food Operations".
"This revision has achieved full coverage from platform responsibilities to on-platform operators, from traditional e-commerce to live broadcast marketing." Li Chunlei, a professor at the People's Public Security University of China, said, for example, the responsibility subject has been unified from "online food trading third-party platform provider" to "online food trading platform operator", the management object has been expanded from "online food operators" to "on-platform operators, live broadcast room operators", and new business formats such as live broadcast delivery have been included in the scope of adjustment for the first time.
Liu Jinrui, a researcher at the Rule of Law Institute of the China Law Society, said: "This revision requires operators within the platform and producers and operators who sell food through self-built websites to display food label information of pre-packaged foods on the product details page. It also adds information disclosure requirements for edible agricultural products. Mark their name, origin, contact information, business address, etc. in a prominent position on the product details page, and encourage the display of edible agricultural product commitment certification, traceability labels and other information."
In addition, in response to food additive issues of public concern, Liu Junjun, a professor at the Food Safety Law Research Center of Beijing Technology and Business University, introduced that the "Draft for Comments" establishes the requirements for food additive sales record management. The core goal is to fill in the shortcomings of the food additive sales link system, consolidate the main responsibilities of food producers and operators, strengthen source traceability and process control capabilities, build an integrated supervision chain for production and sales, improve the level of precise supervision of food additives during and after the event, and achieve early detection, early warning, and early disposal of risks.
Require online catering service providers to disclose processing and production process videos in real time
Traditional supervision methods can no longer match the industrial characteristics of the food industry, which is large in size, dispersed, and new business formats are emerging one after another. Sun Juanjuan, associate professor at Hebei Agricultural University, introduced that the "Draft for Comments" requires online catering service providers to disclose the catering food processing and production process in real-time video form and accept social supervision; it requires food production and operating enterprises to install monitoring equipment in key risk links and connect real-time video information to the information system of market supervision departments at or above the county level. In addition, the "Draft for Comments" also clearly requires people's governments at or above the county level to accelerate the application of "Internet + artificial intelligence" in the field of food safety to improve the effectiveness of territorial supervision and management.
"Smart supervision is included in the law, which is not just a simple technological application upgrade, but also has important institutional value and significance for improving the quality and efficiency of supervision." Liu Peng, a professor at Renmin University of China, said, "Through technical means, the company's management and control responsibilities are transformed from internal self-selected actions to legal requirements for accepting government supervision and social supervision. Fully disclosing food safety-related information can reverse the company's luck mentality and force companies to proactively strengthen process control."
The biggest difficulty in food safety issues lies in the high degree of information asymmetry. The implementation of smart supervision can effectively improve the quantity, quality, speed and effectiveness of food safety information disclosure, and effectively protect consumers' right to know and choose. "Smart supervision can transform the previously closed production and operation links into transparent public information, and expand the right to evaluate food safety from single government supervision to comprehensive social co-governance," Liu Peng said.
Confronting controversial issues such as "heavy fines for minor offenses" and "professional crackdown on counterfeiters"
When the current Food Safety Law was revised in 2015, the starting point for fines was increased from the original 2,000 yuan to 50,000 yuan, which reflected the legislative idea of "heavy laws and combating chaos" and played an important role in maintaining food safety. However, in law enforcement practice, issues such as "heavy penalties for minor offenses" and "professional crackdown on counterfeiters" have caused controversy.
"The most systematic revision of this legal responsibility chapter is a comprehensive adjustment of the fine calculation method, which marks the shift from extensive discretion to gradient fine management of food safety administrative penalties." Li Chunlei said that the original law generally used absolute numerical penalties for cases where the value of goods was less than 10,000 yuan, such as "more than 50,000 yuan and less than 100,000 yuan." Regardless of the size of the violation, fines were determined within the same range. The same fine range applies to illegal acts with a value of 100 yuan and more than 9,000 yuan, and it is easy for "small or excessive penalties" to occur. After the revision, the main penalty provisions have been changed to multiples of the value of the goods, so that the amount of the fine and the scale of the violation are more accurately matched.
The "Draft for Comments" also made important changes to the consumer punitive damages clause. Li Chunlei introduced that the subject claiming punitive damages has been narrowed from "consumers" to "consumers who purchase for daily consumption", and non-life consumer buyers such as professional malicious claimants are excluded from the scope of application of punitive damages, which responds to the problem of proliferation of professional claims and frequent malicious lawsuits in practice. The relevant judicial interpretation of the Supreme People's Court has made it clear that punitive damages should be supported within the scope of "reasonable living consumption needs". The "Draft for Comments" confirms this adjudication rule from a legal perspective, which not only retains the institutional channel for consumers to protect their rights through punitive damages, but also curbs malicious claims for profit.
Reporter Lin Lili
