Recently, the General Administration of Market Supervision (GAMS) and the National Health Commission (NHC) publicly released the National Standard for Food Additives Use in Food Safety (GB 2760-2024) (hereinafter referred to as the new national standard). The new national standard is a revision of the 2014 version, which will be officially implemented on February 8, 2025.

The new national standard has revised the definition of food additives and added the inclusion of nutritional enhancers in the definition of food additives according to the Food Safety Law implemented in 2015. The management of food nutritional enhancers such as new variety licenses and compounded food nutritional enhancers can be implemented with reference to the relevant management regulations of food additives. The new national standard stipulates that food additives are synthetic or natural substances added to food to improve the quality, color, aroma and taste of food, as well as for the needs of preservation, freshness and processing technology, and that food spices, base agent substances in gel-based confectionery, processing aids for the food industry, and nutritional enhancers are also included.

Based on the results of the latest assessment of the safety and process necessity of food additives, the new national standard has revised the regulations on the use of some food additives. For example, it has deleted the food additive varieties and their use regulations such as sunflower red, mimoun yellow, sour date color, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, sea rosin, azocarbonamide, etc., which are no longer necessary for the process; and it has deleted the use regulations of preservatives in canned food, glacial acetic acid in vinegar, natamycin in fruit and vegetable juice syrups, β-carotene and monodiglycerides of diacetyl tartaric acid in distilled spirits. The use requirements of some food additives have been revised, for example, the total amount of aspartame, acesulfame and aspartyl phenylalanine methyl ester acetylsulphonamidic acid have been added when they are used together in the same food category - Aspartame (a.k.a. aspartyl phenylalanine methyl ester): If the use of aspartyl phenylalanine methyl ester acetylsulphonamidic acid (a.k.a. aspartyl phenylalanine methyl ester acetylsulphonamidic acid) is allowed to be used in both the food category Methyl acetylsulfonate (the maximum use amount multiplied by 0.64 can be converted to the amount of aspartame), when used in combination, the maximum use amount cannot exceed the maximum use amount of aspartame specified in the standard.

The new national standard has also revised the principles for the use of flavors and fragrances for food. In order to avoid the abuse of food flavors, the new national standard further specifies the requirements for the use of food flavors with other food additive functions or other food uses, such as benzoic acid, cinnamaldehyde, guarana extract, etc.; it is clear that the labels of food flavors and fragrances should be in line with the "General Rules for Labeling of Food Additives of the National Standard for Food Safety" (GB 29924-2013), and that any food additive that has been added to the label should be labeled in accordance with the provisions of the National Food Safety Standards. The labeling of food spices and food flavors should comply with the General Principles for the Labeling of Food Additives of the National Standard for Food Safety (GB 29924-2013), and prepackaged foods with added food spices and flavors should be labeled in accordance with the General Principles for the Labeling of Prepackaged Foods of the National Standard for Food Safety (GB 7718-2011). (GB 29938-2020) and relevant spice product standards.

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