The State Administration for Market Regulation ("SAMR") has recently issued the Guiding Opinions on Strengthening the Regulation of Individual Workshops Engaged in Food Production and Processing (the "Opinions").
The Opinions sets forth requirements in six aspects as below: 1. gaining a clear picture of and establishing records for individual workshops; 2. subjecting food made by individual workshops to negative-list-based administration; 3. urging the fulfillment of primary responsibility for food safety; 4. enhancing regulation of food production in individual workshops; 5. severely clamping down upon illegal production and processing activities; and 6. facilitating the transformation and upgrading of individual workshops to improve quality. Among others, the Opinions clearly state that subjects running individual workshops shall ramp up their efforts to manage the procurement, storage and feeding of food raw materials and auxiliary materials, and control the risks likely to arise in key steps including production and processing, food packing, and storage and sale. In addition, the Opinions stress that individual workshops that produce or process food beyond the business scope permitted by the catalog, fail to meet sanitary requirements for production, or produce or process food not up to food safety standards, shall be ordered in accordance with law to immediately cease production and business activities, with the license (register, approval or record-filing) revoked in the worst case.