Fujian Tea Industry Regulations Take Effect: Traceability, Packaging Compliance and Fines Up to 20,000 Yuan

Packaging sector watch: Fujian Province's Regulations on Promoting the Development of the Tea Industry took effect on the 1st of this month, bringing stricter compliance duties to tea circulation, traceability and packaging.

Under the new rules, tea operators that fail to set up purchase inspection and record systems and sell tea of unknown origin face fines from 2,000 to 20,000 yuan, one of the key penalties attached to the Regulations.

Traceability and record-keeping: production must be documented, sales must be verifiable.

The Regulations call for a tea quality traceability system. A traceability platform is to capture information across cultivation, processing and marketing, while clarifying corporate responsibility for quality and safety. Tea producers and specialized farmer cooperative economic organizations must maintain production records and must not sell tea that fails quality and safety standards. Tea sellers must keep purchase inspection records, listing the tea's name, specifications, quantity, supplier and purchase date.

Penalty tiers: up to 2,000 yuan for farmers, up to 20,000 yuan for sellers, and up to 30,000 yuan for banned pesticides. Violations bring a maximum 2,000 yuan fine for tea farmers and up to 20,000 yuan for tea trading enterprises. Use of highly toxic, highly hazardous or high-residue pesticides can lead to fines of up to 30,000 yuan depending on the harm caused.

Rights protection and product awards: tea companies cannot be forced to join famous and high-quality tea product evaluations, and such evaluations cannot be run for profit.

Packaging rules: finished tea packaging must be reasonable. Its material, structure and cost must match the quality, specifications and cost of the tea inside, a response to over-packaging and passing off inferior tea as premium.

Pressure on small tea shops: an industry and commerce official said strict enforcement could push many small tea retailers toward delisting.

Around 60% to 70% of tea operators currently have no tea garden or planting base and mainly buy from individual farmers. Purchase inspection gaps are common, and scattered farming makes quality control difficult. Without changing their business model, they are unlikely to meet the new rules and may be gradually phased out.

Cost burden: an unnamed industry insider said some small farmers in Anxi work only a dozen-plus mu and may harvest less than ten jin per season, while one test costs at least 2,000 to 3,000 yuan. Even if testing is done, the extra cost may be passed to consumers, eroding small tea shops' survival advantage.

A path to adapt: a Kaiyuan Industry and Commerce Office official said small farmers can stay in the market by forming specialized farmer cooperatives, moving toward intensive production, and working with branded tea companies; small dealers may consider franchising with a brand. Xiamen Zhenshan Tea recently signed a cooperation agreement with a specialized farmer cooperative formed by tea farmers in Zhenshan Village, Xianghua, Anxi. Zhenshan provides fertilizers and pesticides, manages the planting process uniformly, and controls tea quality in a unified way.

With the market impact in mind, the industry and commerce department said it will first conduct a preliminary market survey and encourage capable companies to start operating under the new Regulations' norms and standards. Source: China Packaging Network (pack.cn), original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-362070.html