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Food Safety, Environmental Hygiene, Agriculture and Fisheries

to the Liquor Licensing Board, an independent statutory body that issues liquor licences, including those for clubs.

During 2015, the department issued 9,104 full, provisional and temporary food business licences, 624 permits for restricted foods, 1,486 licences for places of public entertainment, 31 licences for other trades, 1,194 liquor and club liquor licences, and eight permits for karaoke establishments in premises with restaurant licences.

The department accepts submissions of applications for food business/trade licences and permits through the internet.

Food Safety and Labelling

The Centre for Food Safety is responsible for ensuring food sold in Hong Kong is safe and fit for consumption. About 64,400 samples of food were taken at import, wholesale and retail levels for chemical, microbiological and radiological testing in 2015. The overall satisfaction rate of these tests was 99.7 per cent.

During 2015, about 34,000 vehicles carrying vegetables, and 41,215 vehicles carrying live food animals including pigs, cattle, goats and poultry, were inspected at the Food Control Office and Animal Inspection Station at Man Kam To. The station examined 2,132,295 live food animals and tested 7,953 blood and 53,197 urine, faecal and tissue samples for zoonotic disease and veterinary drug residues.

The nutrition labelling scheme requires pre-packaged foods, unless exempted, to carry labels that provide information about energy and specified nutrients, and also specifies the conditions for making nutrition claims. The scheme helps consumers make informed food choices, regulates misleading or deceptive labels and nutrition claims, and encourages food manufacturers to apply sound nutrition principles in formulating foods. In 2015, the centre conducted visual checks on 5,369 pre-packaged food products to ensure compliance with statutory '1+7' nutrition-labelling requirements and took 503 food samples for chemical analysis. to verify the nutrition information and nutrition claims. The overall compliance rate was 99.55 per cent.

The Food and Drugs (Composition and Labelling) (Amendment) (No 2) Regulation 2014 mandates nutrition labelling of infant formula, follow-up formula and pre-packaged food for infants and young children under the age of 36 months, and regulates the nutritional composition of infant formula. The requirements on infant formula came into operation on 13 December 2015, while those on follow-up formula and pre-packaged food for infants and young children will take effect in June 2016. The centre conducted checks on infant formula products to ensure compliance with the statutory nutrition-labelling requirements and took samples for chemical analysis to verify the nutrition information and composition.

Since the Pesticide Residues in Food Regulation came into effect on 1 August 2014, the centre has taken more than 36,000 food samples at import, wholesale and retail levels for testing on pesticide residues. The overall satisfactory rate is more than 99.7 per cent.

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