The government is to revise regulations to require all imported milk to be labeled “milk” (牛乳) to separate it from domestically produced “fresh milk” (鮮乳), said the Cabinet’s Food Safety Office yesterday.
The plan has won the support of the local dairy industry, along with the ministries of agriculture, economic affairs, and health and welfare during an inter-agency meeting yesterday, and the new regulations are expected to be implemented in July next year, it said.
The health ministry in June last year published revised regulations stipulating that milk with a shelf life of 30 days or more should be called “extended shelf-life fresh milk,” sparking an outcry among local dairy farmers, as the nation was preparing to allow tariff-free imports of liquid milk products from New Zealand starting this year.
Photo: Taipei Times
While the Cabinet last month instructed the Food and Drug Administration to limit use of the label “fresh milk” to products with a shelf life not longer than 14 days, US and Japanese authorities expressed concern that such a non-scientifically based requirement might contravene WTO regulations.
The government is thus planning to stop using shelf life to distinguish between “fresh milk” and “non-fresh milk,” the health ministry said.
Imported milk would simply be labeled as “milk,” it said.
The “fresh milk” label, as well as the Traceable Agricultural Product and the Certified Agricultural Standard (CAS) labels, would continue to apply to locally produced fresh milk, including milk from sheep and cows, to differentiate it from imported milk, it added.
Dairy Farmer Association chairman Lee Hsun-tan (李恂潭), citing a government briefing earlier yesterday, said that only milk products that have obtained “domestic fresh milk” labels and CAS certification can be named “fresh milk,” while milk products made from milk ice cubes should be labeled “reconstituted milk.”
To allow time to preview the legal revisions and companies to redesign product packagings, the new regulations are expected to take effect in the second half of next year at the earliest, he said.
While the government’s proposal is not yet final as it said further discussions are needed, dairy farmers have expressed their support for the explicit distinction between domestic and imported milk, he said.
Dairy Association of Taiwan secretary-general Fang Ching-chuan (方清泉) said the proposed measures align with international standards stipulated by the Codex Alimentarius Commission.
The term “fresh milk” would also be banned from use in food products that are not made from fresh milk, he said.
Products named “fresh milk pudding” or “fresh milk cake” should have used fresh milk as an ingredient, otherwise it would be mislabeling, Fang added.
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