Heilongjiang RevisesRegulations to Improve the Level of Food Safety

On August 28, the 12th meeting of the 13th Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Congress held a press conference to introduce the situation of Heilongjiang Food Safety Regulations (hereinafter referred to as the Regulations) adopted by the 12th meeting of the 13th Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Congress.

It is understood that in order to adapt to the major food safety decision-making deployment of the Party and the state, the Regulations make further provisions in the "four most stringent" aspects. In the aspect of establishing the most rigorous standards, the regulations increase the content that food production enterprises should make a public commitment to the society and be responsible for the authenticity, legitimacy and safety of enterprise standards; in the aspect of implementing the most stringent supervision, they increase the requirements of key link inspection and testing items, catering distribution services and food and kitchen waste delivery; In the implementation of the most severe penalties, the new provisions of illegal acts are set according to actual needs of the corresponding penalties, adding provisions on strengthening the link between administrative law enforcement and criminal justice; and in upholding the most serious accountability, adding the relevant content of responsibility interviews.

Regulations comprehensively consider the risks to food safety caused by "three small businesses" (small food production and processing workshops, small food businesses and food vendors) on-line operation, and their contribution to promoting food industry and economic and social development, stimulating employment and promoting innovation and entrepreneurship. They delete the contribution that food business should be obtained when providing on-line catering services. The provisions of the license allow small food production and processing workshops and small food businesses to operate online on the basis of food production and operation approval certificates. In view of the situation of "black workshops" and "black processing points" operating without license in the "take-out" industry, on the basis of requiring entities to operate stores, it is further stipulated that online food should meet the quality standards of catering food sold by entities operating stores. The regulations clearly stipulate the behavior of food processing, production and distribution services of catering service providers who enter the network. Food service providers shall strictly implement the provisions of purchase inspection, processing operation, cleaning and disinfection, personnel management, etc. in accordance with the food safety operation norms. Containers and packages for catering distribution shall be tight, safe and harmless, and shall be cleaned and disinfected regularly, so as to avoid direct contact with food by food delivery personnel through sealing or other means.

In order to meet the need of building a security line from farmland to dining table and improve the food safety traceability system, the regulations stipulate food safety traceability system from the angles of establishing system, fulfilling main responsibility, encouraging social capital to enter and strengthening department cooperation. According to the actual situation of the development of agricultural product quality traceability platform in recent years in our country and province, the production and operation subjects of green food, organic food and geographic label products are refined, the contents of the public service platform for traceability of agricultural product quality at national and provincial levels are entered, and the production enterprises of edible agricultural products and farmers'cooperatives are encouraged and guided. Production and operation entities enter national and provincial public service platforms for traceability of agricultural products quality, or build their own quality traceability platforms to promote traceability of source, direction, information inquiry and accountability of edible agricultural products. The regulations also provide for the establishment of an incentive system for food safety reporting.