Functional foods in Japan

Abstract

The concept of Functional Food was born in Japanese academic society in the early 1980s, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) established the labeling regulation for 'Foods for Specified Health Uses' (FOSHU) in 1991. In parallel with deregulation, the market for FOSHU has been expanding. The total number of approved FOSHU products reached 194 in July 2000. The market size of FOSHU amounted to 220 billion yen in 1999 on consumer price basis. There are some problems in the permitted health claims of FOSHU, most of which are affected by classification between foods and pharmaceuticals. Recent improvement measures by the MHW and future problems are discussed in this article.