National Health Commission (NHC)
The National Health Commission (NHC) is a central regulatory body in the People’s Republic of China responsible for drafting national health policies and overseeing public health. In the context of the food and beverage industry, the NHC plays a critical role in drafting national food safety standards (GB standards) and managing the rigorous pre-market safety review and registration of new food ingredients.
Regulatory Ecosystem & The Dual Pathway
The NHC operates alongside the state-administration-for-market-regulation-samr (SAMR) and the general-administration-of-customs-of-china-gacc (GACC) in a tripartite system to regulate the Chinese beverage market:
- NHC: Responsible for the underlying scientific and safety standards of products, and approves raw ingredients for general use.
- SAMR: Handles market supervision and can approve specific finished products as health foods.
- GACC: Handles border enforcement and customs.
The tandem operation of the NHC and SAMR provides a “dual pathway” for functional ingredient clearance. While the NHC approves raw ingredients for general use, SAMR manages the Health Food registration and filing tracks for finished products. This structure allows brands multiple strategic avenues to navigate beverage-vs-supplement-ambiguity in the Chinese market.
Ingredient Approval Frameworks
Unlike Western jurisdictions that often rely on negative lists, the NHC operates a strict positive-list-system and enforces novel-food-regulations that mirror the precautionary approach of the European Union. There is no explicit “banned list” for adaptogens or functional ingredients; if a botanical extract is not explicitly approved by the NHC, it is illegal to use in commercial food and beverages.
The NHC manages approvals through two primary frameworks:
- The three-new-foods-system: The gateway for approving new food raw materials, additives, and related products for use in conventional foods. Recent approvals under this system include Yerba mate and Sakura polyphenol.
- dual-use-substances: A specific positive list of botanicals classified as both conventional food and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). This provides a legal pathway for specific adaptogens (like Reishi mushroom, American Ginseng, and Astragalus) to be used in health foods. However, the NHC mandates strict consumption warnings and restricts their use by vulnerable populations (e.g., pregnant women, infants).
For ingredients that fall outside these NHC lists, beverage brands must navigate the Health Food registration and filing tracks managed by SAMR.
International Reciprocity and Scientific Review
As global beverage brands pivot toward functional premiumization, they must navigate the NHC’s strict pre-market approval processes for any new functional ingredient—such as specific polyphenols, probiotics, adaptogens, and nootropics.
Crucially, there is a lack of international ingredient reciprocity: an ingredient that holds GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) status in the United States is not automatically permitted by the NHC. Brands must submit exhaustive scientific data to register novel botanicals (such as Lion’s Mane or Ashwagandha) before they can be legally utilized in food or beverage production in China. However, the NHC frequently references international safety assessments, such as fda GRAS status or european-food-safety-authority-efsa approvals, to expedite these technical reviews.
Once the NHC grants approval for a novel ingredient, it can be utilized in both general foods and targeted health foods. To aid industry transparency, the agency maintains a public list of accepted applications undergoing technical review, which dictates the permissible ingredients for the beverage industry.