ISO 9001 certification is no longer sufficient for food supplements registration in Thailand
The Thai FDA has an important news on the ISO 9001 certificate for the registration of food supplements and, as always, we are proud to be the first to announce it.
On February 9, a resolution was passed that prohibits the use of ISO 9001 certification in order to obtain permission to register food supplements in Thailand. With effect from April 9, the new regulation came into force, putting all foreign producers without ISO 22000 certification out of the question.
A surprise move, not previously unannounced (FDA has been postponing the update trainings since last November due to the current socio-political situation), which has greatly embarrassed importers, regulatory agencies and the Thai FDA itself. Since April 10, all requests for accreditation from foreign manufacturers with ISO 9001 certification have been rejected, raising protests from operators. It is intriguing that the FDA itself has ISO 9001 certification, which is now no longer considered sufficient to guarantee the quality standards of food supplements.
The breaking new from yesterday, April 26, 2021, is that the Thai FDA has wisely backtracked, reviewing the provision and guaranteeing a grace period of an additional 6 months to give way to the producers to comply with the new rules.
Therefore, the ISO 9001 quality standard will be accepted for the accreditation of food supplement manufacturers until October 7, 2021. After that date, only the ISO 22000 certificate will be accepted. The HACCP and GMP certificates are still valid if issued by an Authorized Body recognized in Thailand by the IAF, International Accreditation Forum, but let’s expect news in this case too.
Foreign companies wishing to register their products in Thailand are therefore invited, if they only have ISO 9001, to submit an application by September 2021.
We will keep you informed of further developments; for any information you can contact [email protected]
