1. domestic governance: 23603 cases and key categories

since April 2025, the Food Safety Office of the State Council has jointly deployed six departments. Food Additives since the comprehensive management of abuse, local market supervision departments to seven categories of key categories as the object, focusing on production, catering links beyond the scope, over the limit of use, increase sampling. (Source: State Administration for Market Regulation, August 2026)

1. Governance scope and case data

governance focuses on seven key categories, and investigates preservatives, sweeteners, colorant abuse.

• Dairy products, meat products, aquatic products

• starch and starch products, edible vegetable oil

• beverage, compound seasoning

23603 cases beyond the scope and limit were investigated and dealt with nationwide, involving 43.62 million yuan, 0.145 billion yuan confiscated and 278 cases transferred to public security for criminal responsibility. (Source: State Administration for Market Regulation, August 2026)

2. Key varieties in the next stage

the market supervision department will focus on key varieties such as milk tea, cooked meat, cakes, pasta, and alcohol to further promote governance, promote enterprises to implement the main responsibility of food safety, and standardizefood Additivesuse behavior. (Source: State Administration for Market Regulation, August 2026)

2. U.S. Reform: Proposed Abolition of Self-GRAS Autonomy

on August 10, 2026, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a proposed rule to cancel the voluntary "generally recognized safety" (Self-GRAS) Independent identification requires enterprises to declare to FDA when determining that substances added to food are GRAS, and solicit opinions until December 9, 2026. (Source: FoodNavigator, August 2026)

"Nearly 60 percent of the American diet is made up of ultra-processed foods, and childhood obesity affects more than 1/5 of American children. -- Source: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Statement

1. Main elements of the proposed rules

the proposed rule is 140 pages in total, amending Part 170 of Volume 21 of the Federal Regulations to change voluntary GRAS notification to mandatory, and food ingredients and indirect added substances are included in the declaration. Acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas pointed out that mandatoryGRASnotifications close information gaps and increase FDA's visibility of substances entering the food supply. (Source: FoodNavigator, August 2026)

• change of voluntary GRAS notification procedure to mandatory

• establishment of a time-limited submission channel for simplified declarations of substances already in commercial circulation across state lines

• revision of the Threshold Exemption (TOR) Procedure to Cover Use of Food and Food Contact Substances

2. Revised background and corporate response

the current GRAS notification process was established in 1997, allowing companies to draw their own GRAS conclusions without notifying FDA. The Food Partner Network explained that FDA will set a time-limited declaration channel for substances that have been put into the US market through Self-GRAS before the new regulations take effect, and enterprises should respond in advance. (Source: Food Partners Network, August 2026)

⚠️ Note: if the proposed rule is finalized, substances that have passed the Self-GRAS conclusion on the U.S. market will be required to be redeclared within a time-limited channel, food raw material export enterprises should pay attention to the December 9 consultation deadline.

3. typical case: simulated crab willow titanium dioxide beyond the scope of the case

dalian market supervision informed a food company that the simulated crab willow products were used beyond the scope of the risk items in the sampling inspection. Titanium dioxide. The National Food Safety Standard for the Use of Food Additives stipulates that titanium dioxide can be used as a colorant, but the allowable scope does not include frozen water and its products; the company's main raw materials surimi imported for India, and other companies use Vietnamese surimi. (Source: Dalian Market Regulation Micro Signal, August 2026)

q: Why can the same production line detect out-of-range additives?

At the same time, the enterprise produces simulated crab willow exported to Europe, America and domestic sales, sharing a production line, and adding titanium dioxide as a whitening agent to the export products. Export and domestic processing interval is short, cross-contamination caused by domestic sampling to detect titanium dioxide. The enterprise has no subjective intention, has fulfilled the obligation of purchase inspection, and will not file a case in the end. (Source: Dalian Market Regulation Micro Signal, August 2026)

4. epilogue

domestic to special governance to strengthen over-range, over-limit law enforcement, the United States to mandatory declaration to tighten access to raw materials, the two paths are different but the direction of convergence, involving food raw materials and ingredients, healthy natural raw materials enterprises of Chinese and foreign standards differences and co-line production cross-contamination problems. (Source: State Administration for Market Regulation, FoodNavigator, August 2026)