As the Spring Festival approaches, "New Year's Eve dinner" has become a topic of concern for netizens. Buddha jumps over the wall, pork belly chicken, pickled Chinese cabbage fish... a variety of prefabricated dishes have been constantly occupying the New Year's Eve dinner table in recent years, and sold through various channels, which has triggered the resistance of many consumers and encountered various "verbal and written attacks". The least reassuring aspect of pre made meals for the public is food safety. Recently, the State Administration for Market Regulation disclosed the response of several representative members to the proposal to establish a unified standard system for the development of the pre packaged food industry. The State Administration for Market Regulation stated that it is currently improving the standard system for pre packaged dishes. Ensuring the quality of pre made dishes relies on scientific and authoritative standards and specifications. In its response to the proposal to establish a unified standard system for the development of the pre packaged food industry, the State Administration for Market Regulation stated that the National Health Commission has included the "National Food Safety Standard Pre packaged Vegetables" in the national food safety standard project plan, established a special working group, and orderly promoted the development of standards. The State Administration for Market Regulation (State Standards Commission) is organizing the development of the "Terminology and Classification of Pre made Vegetables" to define and classify the relevant terms and categories of pre made vegetables. Prior to this, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology had formulated six industry standard plans related to pre packaged dishes, including "Convenient Dishes". The China Hotel Association, Guangdong Enterprise Innovation and Development Association, Shanwei Catering Industry Association and other social organizations have respectively released group standards such as "Classification and Evaluation of Prefabricated Cuisine Products", "Prefabricated Cuisine Cantonese Roasted Goose (Duck)", "Prefabricated Cuisine Shanwei Xiaomi (Potato Dumplings)", providing standard guidance for the quality grading and production quality management of prefabricated dishes. Some places have also issued local standards for pre packaged dishes according to local conditions, such as Jiangxi Province, Dalian City in Liaoning Province, Xianyang City in Shaanxi Province, etc., which have formulated relevant local standards such as "Management Specification for Cold Chain Transportation and Distribution of Pre packaged Vegetables", "Guidelines for the Construction of Seafood Pre packaged Vegetable Industrial Parks", and "Technical Specification for Pre packaged Vegetable Distribution" to serve and regulate the development of the pre packaged vegetable industry. In March 2024, the State Administration for Market Regulation and others jointly issued the "Notice on Strengthening the Supervision of Pre fabricated Food Safety and Promoting the High quality Development of the Industry" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"), which specifically proposes that considering the widespread use of central kitchen models by chain catering enterprises, the clean dishes, semi-finished products, and finished dishes they produce and distribute to their own stores should comply with the legal, regulatory, and standard requirements of catering food safety. Dishes made in the central kitchen are not included in the scope of pre made dishes. The "Notice" also emphasizes in the definition of pre made dishes that ready to eat foods that can be consumed without heating or cooking, as well as cold dishes such as vegetable (fruit) salads that can be directly consumed, do not belong to the category of pre made dishes. Since prefabricated dishes need to highlight the characteristics of industrial pre-processing, standardized and systematic production and processing processes are essential, and food additives are a problem that must be solved. The new version of the National Food Safety Standard for the Use of Food Additives (GB 2760-2024) will be officially implemented from February 8, 2025, and the previous 2014 version of the standard will be abolished. It is understood that the new version of the standard has undergone significant changes and covers a wide range, almost involving all food production enterprises. The new version of the standard has modified the query method for the regulations on the use of food additives, and there have been significant changes in the content structure of the appendices and annexes. The new version of the standard has revised the scope and limits of the use of some preservatives, food flavorings, and processing aids, and added requirements for the total amount of sweeteners when used together in the same food category. The relevant regulations involve many types of food. The production enterprises of these food categories should strictly comply with the new standards, adjust the relevant product raw material processes, product formulas, and label identification in a timely manner, and ensure that the use of food additives complies with the provisions of the new standards. The reporter from the Rule of Law Daily noticed that the Notice also put forward high regulatory requirements for food additives in the pre packaged food industry. The Notice urges pre packaged food production and operation enterprises to establish and improve food safety management systems in accordance with the requirements of the "Regulations on the Supervision and Management of Enterprise Implementation of Food Safety Main Responsibility", strengthen risk control in food production and operation, strictly control the quality of raw materials, legally inspect the commitment and compliance certificates of edible agricultural product raw materials and other product quality certificates, strictly use food additives, and effectively ensure the food safety of pre packaged food products. From the perspective of national policy regulations, it is not allowed to add preservatives to pre made dishes. Why is this? It is reported that this is because although pre made dishes have been industrialized, they still belong to the category of dishes, and it is more in line with consumer expectations to not add preservatives to pre made dishes. At the same time, the purpose of such regulations is also to take into account the practical needs of the industry and lead the high-quality development direction of the prefabricated vegetable industry. The industry consensus has gradually become that "unnecessary additives should not be added" and "the use of food additives in food should be minimized as much as possible while achieving the expected effect". Pre made dishes can be stored under freezing, refrigeration, and sterilization processes without the need for preservatives. In order to ensure the safety of pre packaged food, the State Administration for Market Regulation has stated that it will further strengthen the main responsibility for food safety in the pre packaged food industry, urge pre packaged food production and operation enterprises to strictly implement the "Regulations on the Supervision and Management of Enterprise Implementation of Food Safety Main Responsibility", establish and improve food safety management systems, and strengthen food safety risk control. The Notice also proposes specific arrangements for the healthy development of the pre packaged food industry: enhancing the ability to guarantee high-quality raw materials. Guide the concentrated production areas of edible agricultural product raw materials to increase the construction of high-quality agricultural product production bases and investment in related equipment and facilities, continue to promote the construction of the "first workshop", and improve the commercialization and standardization level of edible agricultural product raw materials; Guide agricultural product growers and breeders to use drugs scientifically, strictly prevent the risk of excessive pesticide and veterinary drug residues, and ensure the quality and safety of agricultural product raw materials. According to the relevant person in charge of the State Administration for Market Regulation, the newly revised and implemented Agricultural Product Quality and Safety Law in January 2023 will elevate the system of commitment to compliance certificates to a statutory system, requiring agricultural product production enterprises and farmer professional cooperatives to issue commitment to compliance certificates, promising not to use prohibited pesticides, veterinary drugs, and other compounds, and to use conventional pesticides and veterinary drug residues that do not exceed the standard. Give full play to the role of the national agricultural product quality and safety traceability management information platform, and promote the application of agricultural product traceability management from the origin link to the circulation and consumption field. As of the end of 2023, the National Agricultural Product Quality and Safety Traceability Management Information Platform has registered 580000 production and operation entities, with a total of 170 million visits. (New Society)