On July 16, Consumer Affairs Agency of Japan released Cabinet Decree No. 52 Notification to revise matters such as allergen, consumption term, whether food needs to be heated and important influence of taking other food on safety regulated in Item 8, Article 6 of Food Labeling Standards and Food Labeling Method.

They mainly revised relevant labels about food additives, name of purpose name (sweetening agent, colorant and preservative) of food additives and name of spices and deleted the indicating language of “artificial” and “synthetic”. The label name of sweetening agent is revised from the original sweetening agent, artificial sweetening agent or synthetic sweetening agent to sweetening agent; the label name of preservative is revised from original preservative or synthetic preservative into preservative; the label name of spices is revised from original spices or synthetic spices into spices.

The notification will be implemented from July 16. However, the label of food additives is still applicable to former regulations before April 30, 2022.