Food: Japan Positive List
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Food: Japan Positive List The Japanese government has launched more stringent requirements as a result of higher levels of food safety awareness and Japanese shoppers demanding more information about the food they consume. The Japan Positive List, with checks starting overseas (country of origin) is a new comprehensive safety and sanitation monitoring programme. The Positive List is a major amendment to the Japan Food Sanitation Law (Japan Food Safety Commission). It enforces restrictions on the amount pesticides and other material residues allowed in imported foods. The paragraph was restructured. With the new Positive List system, the MHLW intends to give clearer guidelines to foreign food producers about the level of acceptable agricultural chemicals found in food products. The system regulates the Minimum Residue Limits (MRLs) allowed in any fresh foodstuff produced by food manufacturers, importers, traders or related organizations who are exporting food products to Japan. The Positive List has been enforced since May 29th 2006, where all imported perishable food products have had to comply. Typically each agricultural product has its own set of pesticide MRL’s. The difficulty is that testing for each pesticide is timely and expensive. With an increasing number of hazardous materials being found, it is not surprising that volume of samples being tested is growing quite rapidly. Thailand has long been a major source of Japanese food imports. This led to the creation of a dedicated SGS centre of testing excellence and innovation in Bangkok – the APAC Competence Centre. In May 2006, as the Japanese Positive List was coming into force, the SGS Thailand testing centre was approved by the MHLW as an accredited laboratory with the high-tech chemical capability required for Positive List testing. As a key global R&D centre, the team of experienced lab technicians and state-of-the-art lab equipment will continue to apply themselves at developing best testing practice for agrichemicals in accordance with the monitoring and inspection requirements of the Positive List. On the reception side, SGS Japan has established a Technical Coordination Centre to help harmonize the diverse SGS food safety checks that take place on food items as they arrive in the Japanese market. For the main food export countries this means mandatory multiple audits, inspections and testing on food items. As a single collection point, the SGS hub in Yokohama centralises the latest information related to updating new food standards and regulations, rapid alerts and violation cases against the Positive List. GAP. SGS can provide total solutions to food customers from training to farmers, growers and food producers and certifying to GAP, GMP, HACCP and other international food standards. Our global laboratory network delivers the widest agrichemical testing capabilities in ensuring products and raw materials comply with regulations and customers’ contractual agreements. Updates on Positive List regulations and requirements are made available through seminars and SafeGuardS, our regular technical bulletin. |
