2017 Volume 16 Issue 1 Pages 1-10
The system of Foods with Function Claims (FFC) has been launched in April 2015 in order to help consumers to make more informed choices. One of the features of this system is that if the required information of food product is notified to the Secretary-General of the Consumer Affairs Agency (CAA) before the product is marketed, the product is allowed to bear function claims stating the product’s specified health effect, under the food business operator's own responsibility. Most of the product information submitted to the CAA is disclosed on the CAA website, which is also unique feature of this system. As of March 31, 2017, the total number of FFC is 815, excluding 8 products withdrawn. In this review, using the information available on the CAA website, the time course of cumulative number of FFC, the number of food business operators by prefecture and capital size, the number of FFC by type of food, method of evaluating function claims, functional substance and function claim were analyzed. The results indicated that the FFC market is expanding. The current situation was examined based on the results of analysis, and the future development of FFC was discussed.
