A Study on the adoption of a functional labeling system for natural foods

The current 「Food Sanitation Act」 defines ‘food’ as any food except for those taken as medicine in Article 2, No. 1, and the Supreme Court of Korea said that ‘natural food’ as well as processed and cooked food are included in food. In addition, the Supreme Court recognized that the pharmacological function of rice, a natural food, existed in the case of selling the white rice product itself produced from the rice variety developed by domestic researchers by posting it on the Internet website. However, according to the current legislation in Korea, the labeling of ‘functionality’, which means to control nutrients for the structure and function of the human body or to obtain useful effects for health purposes such as physiological action, is limited to health functional foods and general foods. In the case of natural foods such as agricultural products and aquatic products, the functional labeling system is not adopted. In the case of Japan, in the case of natural foods such as agricultural products and aquatic products containing functional ingredients, if certain reporting requirements are met, a system that can be recognized as functional labeling food that can simply display functionality in the form of accepting a report from a producer was adopted since 2015. In Korea, in view of the confirmation of social beliefs through the judgment of the courts, the industrialization trend of natural foods according to the times, and the protection of consumers' right to know and health, there is a need of adopting a functional labeling system for natural foods to Korea as well.