Health & Community
Milk marketing code planned
May 16, 2012
The Hong Kong Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes is being drafted to prevent malpractice in advertising and marketing, Chief Secretary Stephen Lam says.He told legislators today the Government is developing the code, and will seek feedback on it from the trade and stakeholders in the middle of this year.
The code will provide guidelines to manufacturers and distributors of breast-milk substitutes and related products to prevent malpractice in advertising and marketing.
It will cover requirements on nutrition labelling, claims and nutritional composition.
The code will be implemented in the form of voluntary guidelines with an appropriate monitoring mechanism.
The Centre for Food Safety will test the nutritional composition of infant formulae available in the market in 2012-13.
Depending on the trade's response to the code, the Government will consider enacting legislation governing nutritional composition, nutrition labelling and claims of infant foods.
