Food and cosmetics are closely related to people's daily life. They account for a huge amount of fast-moving consumer goods and are also the interests of many businesses. In order to improve the competitiveness of the commodity market, while improving the product quality, many businesses also pay much attention to commodity packaging, and consumers often feel like "buying a coin and returning a pearl". In fact, excessive packaging of goods is not feasible and unreliable without standards. In 2009, China first formulated the mandatory national standard of restricting over packaging of food and cosmetics, and put forward restrictive indicators and calculation methods for over packaging of food and cosmetics; The law of the people's Republic of China on the prevention and control of environmental pollution by solid waste clearly stipulates that if a producer or operator fails to comply with the mandatory standards restricting excessive packaging of goods, the market supervision and administration department or relevant departments of the local people's government at or above the county level shall order it to make corrections; Those who refuse to make corrections shall be fined not less than 2000 yuan but not more than 20000 yuan; If the circumstances are serious, a fine of not less than 20000 yuan but not more than 100000 yuan shall be imposed.

1. Overview of excessive packaging of goods

Excessive packaging refers to the packaging in which the packaging porosity, number of packaging layers and packaging cost exceed the requirements. Excessive packaging of goods not only wastes resources and energy, but also increases the burden of consumers, and the packaging waste causes pollution to the environment. The state also pays more and more attention to this, and the supervision will be gradually strict.

Since the implementation of the 2009 standard, all localities have also carried out routine inspection on excessive packaging. In 2020, Shanghai Market Supervision Bureau conducted a packaging measurement supervision and random inspection on biscuits, cosmetics, tea and other commodities sold on e-commerce platforms. The results showed that 12 of the 50 batches of commodities were over packaged; Two batches of tea and coffee were over packaged, and the unqualified discovery rate was 20%; The most serious over packaging is cosmetics. There are problems in 7 batches, and the unqualified discovery rate is 70%.

2. Revision details and interpretation of 2021 standard

This revision is based on the principle of being conducive to administrative supervision and enterprise implementation, and aims to effectively solve the problem of excessive packaging. At the same time, it is combined with the actual situation of our country. The revision of the standard also highlights the state's attention to excessive packaging, which means that enterprises need to implement the standard requirements more strictly in the future. The revision changes are relatively large, and relevant enterprises need to carefully study the standards.

1) Definitions of relevant terms

The 2021 edition of the standard revised the definitions of excessive packaging, sales packaging, contents, packaging porosity, single piece and packaging layers, deleted the definition of initial packaging, and added the definitions of comprehensive commodities and necessary space coefficients of commodities.

In the 2009 standard, the initial packaging refers to the packaging in direct contact with the product, which is deleted in this revision, mainly considering that some enterprises in the current market deliberately expand the initial packaging and have few contents in order to avoid excessive packaging of their products; In addition, because the original standard is to calculate the minimum volume of the circumscribed cuboid of the initial packaging, some enterprises make the initial packaging into an irregular shape, so as to improve the volume of the initial packaging and reduce the porosity of the packaging; Others increase the initial packaging volume by adding unnecessary or irregular products to reduce the packaging porosity.

At present, some of the sales packages of food and cosmetics are not single products, and may include two or more kinds of food or cosmetics. Therefore, the 2021 standard introduces the concept of comprehensive packaging. Comprehensive goods refer to goods with two or more kinds of food or cosmetics in the package.

Referring to the 2009 standard, the 2021 standard defines the necessary spatial coefficient of goods as the correction factor for the spatial measurement required to protect food or cosmetics.

2) Limit requirements

Packaging porosity. The concept of initial packaging volume is deleted in the calculation of packaging porosity, and it is converted by the mass or volume marked on the commodity. Therefore, the required index of packaging porosity has been adjusted.

Considering the comprehensive commodities in the market, different commodities may have different packaging voids. Therefore, the packaging porosity of comprehensive commodities in the 2021 standard shall be subject to the porosity corresponding to the product with the largest single net content. In addition, some cosmetics can not be used as a single product and can only be used after mixing. Therefore, the 2021 standard stipulates that cosmetics to be mixed, and a single piece refers to the mixed product.

① Number of packaging layers. Due to the deletion of the definition of initial packaging, the number of packaging layers of all commodities is required to be increased by one layer, which is consistent with the number of packaging layers in the original standard. Grain and its processed products shall not exceed three floors, and other commodities shall not exceed four floors.

② Packaging costs. The production organization shall take measures to control that the cost of all packaging except those directly in contact with the contents shall not exceed 20% of the sales price of the product.

3) Testing requirements

① Requirements for sampling and testing equipment and tools

In order to facilitate the management of commodity sales packaging production and the supervision of excessive packaging, it is necessary to clarify the sampling and testing tools and methods. The 2021 version of the standard requires that the sampling quantity of food and cosmetics of the same variety and packaging style is generally one piece. Measuring equipment and tools such as straightedge, caliper and volume measuring instrument shall meet the testing requirements and be accurate to 1mm or 1mm3.

② Sales package volume measurement method

The 2021 standard specifies three measurement methods of sales package volume, instrument method, manual method and other methods.

Instrument law is the arbitration law. At normal temperature and pressure, after calibrating the volume measuring instrument according to the operating procedures, put the commodity sales package on the instrument measurement platform, start the measurement program, measure the commodity sales package, repeat it three times, and take the arithmetic average to calculate the commodity sales package volume.

Manual method is only applicable to sales packaging with regular shape. Under normal temperature and pressure, the length measuring instrument is used to directly measure the length, width and height of the commodity sales package along the outer wall of the package, repeat it three times, and take the average value to calculate the volume of the commodity sales package; The cylindrical commodity sales package is directly measured along the outer wall of the package with a length measuring instrument, which is repeated three times, and the arithmetic mean value is taken to calculate the volume of commodity sales package.

Other methods, drainage method is only applicable to waterproof sales packaging. When measuring the volume of commodity sales package by drainage method or similar method, immerse the sales package into the container that has accurately measured the volume of water (or other uniform fine particles) at normal temperature and pressure. The increased volume is the volume of commodity sales package, repeat it three times, and take the arithmetic mean value to calculate the volume of commodity sales package.

③ Calculation method of packaging porosity

The packaging porosity is calculated as the percentage of the volume of the sales package minus the volume of all contents multiplied by the coefficient and the volume of the sales package. The absolute difference between the two independent measurement results of the packaging porosity under the condition of repeatability shall not exceed 10% of the arithmetic mean.

④ Calculation method of packaging layers

The packaging directly contacting the inner contents is the first layer, and so on. The outermost packaging is the nth layer, and N is the number of layers of packaging; since some departments in the implementation of the original standard listed the packaging materials and outer packaging of the inherent properties of products such as artificial casings and zongzi leaves as one layer, the material layer of the inherent properties of products directly contacting the inner contents is added in the 2021 standard (such as Zongye, bamboo tube, natural or collagen casing, hollow capsule, etc.) , and the requirement that the film close to the sales package with a thickness of less than 0.03mm is not included; if the same package contains commodities with different packaging layers, only the packaging layers of commodities with limited packaging layers shall be calculated, and the packaging layers of commodities with limited packaging layers shall be calculated respectively, and whether the commodities meet the requirements shall be determined according to the Limited packaging layers.

⑤ Calculation method of packaging cost

The calculation of packaging cost is consistent with the 2009 standard, which is calculated by the percentage of the total cost of all packaging materials from the second layer to the N layer and the contract sales price signed between the commodity manufacturer and the seller or the normal market sales price of the commodity.

4) Decision rule

The 2021 version of the standard adds the judgment rule of excessive packaging. If one of the packaging porosity, packaging layers and packaging cost does not meet the index requirements, the packaging of the commodity is judged as excessive packaging.

5) Necessary space coefficient of commodity

In the 2021 standard, the necessary space coefficient of goods is set according to the classification of food and cosmetics. The setting of the necessary space coefficient of goods mainly takes into account the product characteristics, including product shape, liquid and solid state, and the realization of packaging technology includes inflation and the safety, protection, convenience and other functions realized by packaging. Among them, food is mainly based on The classified catalogue of food production license is divided into 31 categories except food additives and comprehensive food; cosmetics are based on the announcement of the State Food and Drug Administration on matters related to cosmetics production license (No. 265 in 2015) The main production and production conditions are divided into general liquid units, cream emulsion units, powder units, aerosol and organic solvent units, wax unit, toothpaste unit and other units. The categories include: hair care, skin care, hair perming, gel, hair care, loose powder, bulk powder, hair coloring, bath salts, aerosol. , organic solvents, waxes, toothpastes and comprehensive cosmetics, etc. it should be noted that the necessary space coefficient of commodities makes remarks on individual foods or cosmetics in some major categories. When using, it is necessary to check whether they belong to foods with other remarks.

Summary

The new standard will be officially implemented on September 1, 2023, setting a two-year transition period for enterprises and the market. During this period, food and cosmetics manufacturers need to carry out compliance design for product packaging according to the requirements of the new standard. At the same time, they need to consume inventory packaging and commodities for sale, especially cosmetics commodities, which have a long shelf life and a relatively long consumption cycle in circulation. Taken together Look, the overall idea of the 2021 standard is clear and easy to understand. The calculation of each limit index of excessive packaging is simplified and more operable. Whether it is enterprise packaging design, self-test of limit index or inspection by regulatory authorities, the relevant requirements are very clear. I believe that the further supervision of excessive packaging of food and cosmetics will play an important role.