Abstract
The category “Food with Health Claim” contains “Food with Nutrient Function Claim” and “Food for Specified Health Use (FOSHU)”. The definition of “Food with Nutrient Function Claim” is “food used to supplement nutritional factors such as vitamins and minerals”. Once certain standards have been met, public sale of the item is possible. In concrete terms these requirements specify that the daily intake of the aforementioned nutritional factors must be within a certain range, as well as the display of health claims and warning labels.
At the same time, because FOSHU possess components capable of affecting physiological function, and their application is essentially as specific health foods, each food to be sold as FOSHU requires authorization from the Japanese Ministry of Health. In this article we focus on the various tests required for approval.
