Agriculture & Food

The EU Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) is an important platform for the exchange of information on the safety of food, feed and food contact materials in the EU and the European Economic Area. The notification of Chinese export products by RASFF not only affects product sales and brings economic losses to enterprises, but also affects the reputation of "Made in China". This article combs and analyzes the notification of Chinese products (excluding Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) by the EU RASFF system in the third quarter of 2021 from the aspects of notification overview, notified country, notified product category and notified hazard type.

1. Brief introduction

In the third quarter of 2021, 31 countries in Europe notified 1178 batches of products through RASFF, which was a slight increase compared with the 1,120 cases in the previous quarter, but an increase of 34.32% compared with the 877 cases in the third quarter of 20 years. The growth trend is obvious. . Among them, RASFF issued 79 notifications to Chinese products in the third quarter, accounting for 6.71% of the total notifications. It is worth noting that the number of notifications of Chinese products in this quarter has increased significantly compared with the previous quarter and the third quarter of 2020, which increased by 33.90% month-on-month and 43.64% year-on-year.

2. Notifying country

In the third quarter of 2021, a total of 17 countries issued notifications on Chinese products. The top three countries reporting the number of Chinese products are Poland (16 cases, accounting for 20.25%), Spain (12 cases, accounting for 15.19%), and Germany (12 cases, accounting for 15.19%), accounting for RASFF’s notifications to Chinese products during the same period 50.63% of the total. Figure 1 shows the number of Chinese products notified by RASFF in the third quarter of 2021.

Figure 1 RASFF notified the number of Chinese products in the third quarter of 2021

3. Notification of product category

In the third quarter of 2021, a total of 16 types of products have been notified in China. Food, food contact products, and feed have been notified 33, 44 and 2 respectively. The top two products notified are food contact products (44 cases, accounting for 55.70%), food additives and condiments (6 cases, accounting for 7.59%), followed by fish and fish products (4 cases, accounting for 5.06%), and fruits and vegetables (4 cases, accounting for 5.06%). Among them, the number of notified food contact products exceeded half of the number of notified products in China in the third quarter, an increase of 15 from the previous quarter, which was the main reason for the substantial increase in the number of notified products in China in the third quarter. Figure 2 shows the status of China's product categories notified by RASFF in the third quarter of 2021.

Figure 2 RASFF notified China's product categories in the third quarter of 2021

Four, notification of the type of hazard

In the second quarter of 2021, China's notified products involved 15 types of hazards, a total of 78 items (two notifications did not specify the reason for the notification, and one notification involved two types of hazards). The top three hazards are components (31 cases, accounting for 39.74%), pesticide residues (14 cases, accounting for 17.95%), and migration (10 cases, accounting for 14.10%).

Among them, the main hazard type of food is pesticide residues (14 cases, accounting for 42.42%), mainly involving pesticides such as ethylene oxide, tolfenpyrad, 2-chloroethanol; the main hazard type of food contact products is component ( 29 cases, accounting for 67.44%), most of the notification reasons are because the products contain bamboo, corn, rice husks, etc., relevant export companies should try to avoid using these substances in their products; in addition, the notified food contact products due to migration The proportion is also relatively high (11 cases, accounting for 25.58%), mainly involving primary aromatic amines, formaldehyde, melamine, volatile organic components and other substances.

In the third quarter of 2021, RASFF notified the hazard types of Chinese products as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3 RASFF notified the hazard types of Chinese products in the third quarter of 2021