The basic structure of Japanese food law comes under three agencies: Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery (MAFF) whose legislation covers Japan's agricultural standards and quality labelling standards (JAS) for GMO, organics, country of origin, ingredients and best-before-date. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) legislation covers food sanitation law and health improvement laws for nutritional content, food additives, labelling of allergens, food with health claims (FHC) along with foods with specified health uses (FOSHU) and foods with nutrient functional claims (FNFC).

The Consumer Affairs Agency (CAA) is a unified organisation that governs labelling regulation and is in charge of making up draft labelling standards, with enforcement work being executed in coordination with related agencies. Due to the sheer number of regulations and amendments, AFRIS has uploaded only the core range of documents. Please contact us if you require any further assistance in accessing documents not found on this website. We cannot guarantee any results from any additional searches, we only highlight the fact that Japan is one of the most regulated markets in the world.