Freshly made beverages to require sugar, calorie content label

Taipei, Oct. 5 (CNA) Taiwan will impose new regulations at the beginning of next year that require more detailed labeling of a beverage's nutritional value and caffeine content, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Monday.

One of the new measures will require that freshly made drinks sold by beverage stores will need to have a nutrition label that specify the sugar and calorie content of all elements in the drink.

In Taiwan, labels currently only contain information on the sugar and calories in the liquid part of the drink, but under the new rules, the nutritional value of any solid add-ons, such as tapioca pearls and jelly, must also be included, the FDA said.

Lee Wan-chen (李婉媜), head of the FDA's Food Safety Division, said the labeling requirements also apply to convenience stores and other fast food operators.

A more detailed labeling system will also be applied to freshly-made coffee, which the FDA said will need to be distinguished by the amount of caffeine contained in the drinks through red, yellow and green labels.

A red label will apply if the caffeine content in a cup of coffee is more than 201 milligrams, while yellow and green labels will be used for drinks with 101-200mg of caffeine and below 100mg of caffeine, respectively.

For fruit and vegetable drinks, only products containing more than 10 percent real fruit or vegetable juice can be called the "juice" of the fruit or vegetable, the FDA said, while anything below the 10 percent threshold should be referred to as "flavor" or "flavored."

The new measure will be enforced based on amendments to the government's "Regulations Governing the Labeling of Freshly Made Beverages in Chain Drink Stores, Convenience Stores and Fast Food Restaurants," announced Monday.

The new labeling measure will take effect Jan. 1, 2021, Lee said. Violators will be subject to fines of between NT$30,000 (US$1,042) and NT$3 million, and those who engage in false labeling will faces between NT$40,000 and NT$4 million.