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On 25 November 2004, the Department of Health announced new rules on expiry date la-beling pursuant to Subparagraph 5, Paragraph 1, Article 17 of the Food Hygiene Control Act (FHCA). The main content is as follows:
Subparagraph 5, Paragraph 1, Article 17 of the Act provides that the expiry date of foodstuffs or food additives supplied in containers or packaging must be clearly marked in Chinese and in generally used wording, i.e. it must be marked with "youxiao riqi" ("expiry date") in traditional Chinese characters. Article 12 of the Enforcement Rules to the Act requires this marking to be printed on the container or packaging, and a date comprising year, month, and day to be indicated in a customarily rec-ognizable manner. However, if the shelf life of the product is more than three months, the expiry date may be marked in only the year and month, in which case it is assumed that the expiry date is at the end of the month indicated. If the meaning of "expiry date" is expressed in other wording, such as "best by" or "enjoy by," it must also be indicated that the wording so employed refers to the expiry date.
A previous DOH interpretation stated that if foodstuffs were marked with wording other than "expiry date," such as "use-by period," "enjoy by," "storage period" or the manufac-turing date and shelf life (allowing the expiry date to be calculated), these would be regarded the same as the wording of "expiry date." This interpretation ceased to be effective from the date of the new ruling.
The DOH will regard foodstuffs manufactured or imported from 1 March 2005 onward that are not marked with the Chinese characters of "expiry date" in Chinese (whether alone or in addition to other wording) as violation of Ar-ticle 17 of the FHCA. In consideration of business operational needs, foodstuffs manu-factured or imported before 1 March 2005 may continue to be sold until sold out, but the manufacturer or importer must retain docu-ments evidencing the manufacture or impor-tation of the products for inspection by the health authorities.
