GB 7098-2025National food safety standard - Canned foods (English PDF)

0 Note on the English title

The cover of the document carries no English title. The English title given here is a translation of the Chinese title printed on the cover.

1 Scope

The standard applies to canned foods.

It does not apply to canned supplementary foods for infants and young children.

2 Terms and definitions

2.1 canned food, also called canned preserved food — food made from raw materials such as fruit, vegetables, edible fungi, livestock and poultry meat, aquatic products, cereals, pulses, nuts and seeds, and eggs, which after processing is filled or poured into metal cans, glass jars, semi-rigid containers or flexible packaging containers and, by sealing followed by sterilisation or by sterilisation followed by sealing, is brought to a state of commercial sterility.

2.2 swollen can, also called blown can — the phenomenon in which gas produced by chemical action or by microbial activity, or a physical cause, creates a positive pressure inside the container so that one end, both ends or both sides of the can, pouch, jar, cup or other packaging container bulge outwards.

2.3 commercial sterility — the state of a food which, having undergone a suitable heat sterilisation, contains no pathogenic microorganisms and no non-pathogenic microorganisms able to multiply in it at ordinary temperatures.

3 Technical requirements

Raw material requirements: the raw materials comply with the corresponding food standards and the relevant provisions.

Sensory requirements: these comply with Table 1, which has three columns, the item, the requirement and the test method. For the container, the packaging container is sealed intact, without leakage and without swelling of the can, checked by visual examination of the outside of the container in natural light. For the contents, they have the colour, smell, taste and physical state proper to that variety of canned food and contain no foreign matter visible to the naked eye; the test method cell of that row reads GB/T 10786 in the digitised text, where the standard number runs into the page number.

Physical and chemical indicators: these comply with Table 2, which has three columns, the item, the limit and the test method. Histamine, in mg/kg, is limited to at most 200 and is determined by GB 5009.208; bongkrekic acid, in mg/kg, is limited to at most 0.25 and is determined by GB 5009.189. A footnote states that the histamine limit applies only to canned high-histamine fish, high-histamine fish being blue-skinned red-fleshed marine fish such as chub mackerel, scad, horse mackerel, mackerel, skipjack tuna, tuna, saury, Japanese Spanish mackerel, blue mackerel and sardine. A second footnote states that the bongkrekic acid limit applies only to canned white jelly fungus.

Contaminant limits and mycotoxin limits: contaminant limits comply with GB 2762 and mycotoxin limits with GB 2761.

Microbiological limits: the product complies with the commercial sterility requirement for canned foods, tested by the method specified in GB 4789.26. Canned tomato paste and canned tomatoes also comply with Table 3, which gives the mould count in per cent of fields at not more than 50 for canned tomato paste and not more than 30 for canned tomatoes, determined by GB 4789.15.

Food additives and food nutrition fortification substances: the use of food additives complies with GB 2760 and the use of food nutrition fortification substances with GB 14880.

4 Other

It is advisable for the product label to bear a warning phrase such as do not eat if the can is swollen.

A Relationship to previous standards

The standard replaces GB 7098-2015, National food safety standard—Canned foods. The foreword lists the main changes as follows: the terms and definitions were amended; the sensory requirements were amended; the test methods for the physical and chemical indicators were amended; the histamine indicator was amended; the microbiological limits were amended; and Clause 4, Other, was added.