The novel coronavirus epidemic in 2020 has brought a lot of impact on all industries in the world. A lot of domestic customers have been seeking to import pet food in recent years. Despite the impact of the epidemic, it has had a small fluctuation on the imported pet food industry in China, and overseas manufacturing companies are still enthusiastic about exporting pet food to China, and the number has kept on rising this year, which shows that the Chinese market still has unlimited potential. At the same time, the adjustment of the Chinese government's domestic policy on imported pet food products has not only brought more opportunities but also set a high advantage to overseas manufacturing. Most manufacturing companies in the industry now are aware that to export pet food to china requires to complete the registration of factories and products in China. One is the product registration which is done under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China(hereafter referred to as “MARA”), and the other is for the export permission of factories from the General Administration of Customs of China(GACC). Next, Ringone Technology Consulting Ltd Co. will give an overview of the imported pet food registration in China this year.
First of all, with regard to pet food registration under the MARA, according to the "Pet Feed Management Measures" of the MARA, pet food is divided into three(3) categories: compound feed (main food), pet additive premix feed (pet health products, nutrition products) ), other pet food (snacks, jerky, etc.). Among them, pet compound feed and pet premix feed need to apply for the MARA registration. The MARA registration refers to product registration, which is divided into two major steps: 1) Document review: it requires reviewing the qualifications of the factory and product information to ensure that they are in compliance with the requirements of the Announcement No. 20. of the MARA; 2) Rechecking and testing of samples: it is to verify whether the physical and chemical indicators and sanitary indicators of the product are consistent with the materials provided in the document review. The certificate will reflect the registration certificate number, the name of the applicant company, manufacturer and address, product name, common name, sensory indicators, scope of application, physical and chemical indicators, and certificate validity (5 years).It should be noted that this year's registration policy has been adjusted during the rechecking and testing phase, which has been shortened to 2 months from 3 months as before. The MARA will directly assign third-party inspection agencies in various provinces and cities in China for testing. Therefore, for the entire registration process, the application cycle is also shortened to a certain extent, which will help the applicant enterprise to obtain the registration certificate as soon as possible.
In addition, regarding the licenses issued by the MARA in 2020, our company has made the following statistics: by December 2020, the MARA has issued a total of 639 pieces of pet food import registration certificates (only dogs and cats). Classified by product type, there are 594 pieces of compound feed (main food), and the remaining are additive premixed feed (pet health products). Classified by country, Canada 122, New Zealand 104, Belgium 66, Italy 59, Germany 58, United States 44, Czech Republic 28, France 25, Thailand 19, Taiwan 19, Argentina 18, Japan 18, Spain 15, Denmark 14, Austria 9, the Netherlands 8, Australia 5, Norway 3, the United Kingdom 2, Lebanon 2. In General, the number of certificates issued has greatly increased compared to previous years. Pet staple food still maintains a large share. Canada and New Zealand have the largest number of product registrations.
In addition, Ringone technology consulting Ltd. Co. also made the following statistics on the status and number of countries that overseas pet food companies have entered China this year:
33 in Thailand, 2 in Taiwan, 1 in the Philippines, 1 in Uzbekistan, 12 in the Netherlands, 5 in France, 7 in Belgium, 21 in Germany, 3 in Denmark, 2 in the Czech Republic, 16 in Italy, 42 in the United States, There are 9 in Canada, 2 in Brazil, 6 in Argentina, 17 in Australia, 4 in Austria, and 13 in Spain. Also, there are 6 registered manufacturers of sheep by-products exported to China for pet food processing, 120 registered manufacturers for further processing into pet food raw materials from New Zealand are being exported to China, and 7 registered manufacturers of poultry by-products exported from Kyrgyzstan to China for pet food processing.
Among them, the number of enterprises exporting to China from the following countries has increased compared with the previous year: Thailand, the Netherlands, Italy, the United States, Canada, and Argentina. The application process for overseas factories for entering to China under the GACC, to some extent, will be affected by some factors, such as the trade relationship between China and the other country, the scale and production capacity of the factory, the management ability of the manufacturer, and familiarity with Chinese laws and regulations as well as the degree of implementation. In General, it takes around one(1) year for the applicant company whose country has obtained the GACC permission; it will take longer for the ones whose country applies for the GACC permission for the first time.
Also due to some animal disease epidemics from some countries, the Chinese government has banned some products to be exported to China for some time until further notice. This involves the lifting of import restrictions on American poultry and ruminant-derived ingredients, which provides great convenience for importing American pet food. Second, Germany has been re-banned for entry of related poultry-related products from February 2020 due to the presence of a highly pathogenic avian influenza epidemic. In addition, France, Belgium, South Korea, Vietnam, etc. have also issued a ban due to highly pathogenic avian influenza. These measures to prevent the export of pet food products containing poultry ingredients to China obviously raise the setback to export pet food to China, but at the same time provide safety guarantees for the domestic market.
