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Forcing big brands to comply 'too difficult'
Thousands of pre-packaged food items could disappear from the city's  shelves because of new nutrition labelling regulations scheduled to take effect in 2010.
The government last week tabled the proposal to  Legco for vetting.  It would require that all pre-packaged food  carry labels detailing the total energy and seven core nutrients, namely protein, carbohydrate, total fat, saturated fat, trans-fatty acids,  sodium and sugars.
Food officials admitted that the regulation would  not  cover claims made on  big trademark items such as 'Diet Coke', 'Coke Zero' and  'Vitasoy'.
The so-called '1 plus 7' labelling, expected to take effect in July 2010, will also restrict  how manufacturers make 'nutrient functions claims'.
It means products that claim 'low fat', 'fat free', 'zero trans-fat', 'low sugar', 'sugar free',  for example, have to meet certain objective requirements. At present, there is no regulation on the use of those claims and there has been growing concerns over 'fake' healthy food.
Food items are allowed to carry claims related to allergens such as  'no lactose' and 'no gluten'.
The regulation provides exemptions to items of which 30,000 or fewer a year are sold  unless they carry nutritional claims.
The controller of the Centre for Food Safety, Constance Chan Hon-yee, said  the government had no power to regulate claims that related to 'personal feelings' and trademarks. For example, the Vita Lemon Tea sold in the city  uses the word 'less sweet' rather than 'low sugar'.  Coca-Cola has products called 'Diet Coke' and 'Zero Coke'.
'Less sweet or less salty is a sensation; it is difficult to measure,' Dr Chan said.
The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department's consultant in community medicine, Ho Yuk-yin,  said the department had given up the  idea of regulating trade-marked items after discussing the matter at length.
'Unlike cigarettes, where claims in trademarks are also regulated, it is difficult to apply the rules on food because there could be too many variations. Also, it involves too complicated legal issues and an issue of intellectual property,' Dr Ho said.
Dr Chan said the purpose of the new law was to provide more information for customers to encourage manufacturers to produce more healthy products, and to combat misleading  labels and claims.
But the new rules have drawn  opposition from the trade and some countries' consulates, which said the new requirement would add an extra 10 per cent in costs. The latest estimates presented by the food trade to the government showed that  thousands of items, or about 2.5 per cent of all packaged food items - in terms of sales volume - sold in Hong Kong would not be relabelled because of cost concerns. The manufacturers were unlikely to spend extra money to relabel them  to suit the city.
'These products could be removed from sale in the worst scenario, but it is only a very small portion of all items sold here,' Dr Chan said.
Sixty per cent of the city's pre-packed food   is imported. The United States, the mainland and Australia are among the top five exporters of pre-packed goods to Hong Kong. France, Germany, Italy, Britain, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam could also be hard hit by the labelling system.



Many items won't pass 2010 food label laws