The year 2026 marks the beginning of the 15th Five-Year Plan period. During this year's National People's Congress sessions, Yu Ruifen, a National Committee member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and President of Laiyifen, submitted six proposals. These proposals primarily focus on four key areas: people's livelihood and welfare, rural revitalization, scientific and technological innovation, and the consumer economy. Yu Ruifen stated that in recent years, she has submitted multiple suggestions related to children's food safety and health. Among them, a 2023 proposal concerning children's food health and the prevention of childhood obesity and precocious puberty helped prompt relevant authorities to strengthen supervision over products labeled as "Children's Food" and regulate false advertising practices.
At this year's sessions, Yu Ruifen proposed accelerating the development and establishment of national food standards specifically for minors. This initiative aims to regulate product development, production, and marketing from the source, effectively safeguarding the dietary safety of young people.
The proposal recommends a scientific, three-stage age classification system and calls for the creation of national food standards for minors.
Yu Ruifen gathers frontline industry insights through daily visits to stores and supply chain bases across the country, engaging directly with consumers, franchisees, and farmers to obtain firsthand market and public welfare information. During her research for her official duties, she also visits communities, rural areas, and schools, focusing on issues like children's food health and rural revitalization that concern the public.
As a mother, Yu Ruifen has advocated for children's food safety and health for four consecutive years. Her relevant proposal from last year received a positive response from the Ministry of Education, with some elements incorporated into their work plans. Many regions have since optimized nutritional balance in school meals, employed professional nutritionists, and improved traceability systems for school catering.
Addressing the urgent need for detailed grading in children's food health, and problems such as "pseudo-children's foods" that merely change packaging while offering the same quality as adult products—eroding parental trust—Yu Ruifen conducted extensive grassroots research. This year, she proposed accelerating the establishment of national food standards for minors. The suggestion includes clearly defining three age groups—3-6 years, 7-12 years, and 13-18 years—and building a comprehensive children's food standard system to regulate product development, production, and marketing from the source.
Regarding the silver economy, Yu Ruifen noted that China's elderly population is nearing 400 million. The traditional concept of "food and medicine sharing the same origin" aligns well with the gentle conditioning and chronic disease management needs of older adults, serving as a crucial approach for developing the silver economy and implementing the Healthy China strategy. Currently, relevant laws and two group standards exist, but a unified, mandatory national standard is lacking. The industry faces issues like insufficient public education and market disorder, necessitating a national standard for regulated development.
Yu Ruifen suggested that the National Health Commission take the lead, collaborating with professional institutions to compile dietary regimens and contraindication guidelines for the elderly.科普 education should be promoted in communities and nursing homes to help seniors establish scientific health concepts. Regulatory authorities should include related products in key supervision catalogs, strengthen full-chain sampling and traceability, crack down on illegal activities, and raise market entry thresholds. She also advocated for accelerating the formulation of national standards for age-appropriate food-medicine products, dovetailing with existing regulations and group standards, clarifying indicators for raw materials and combinations, and detailing usage guidance for specific elderly groups. Improving the service ecosystem by creating integrated scenarios combining health, culture, service, and digital elements, promoting age-friendly adaptations, and providing enterprises with policy support for R&D and taxation can achieve a win-win situation for elderly health protection and the silver economy.
On the role of snack foods in boosting consumption, Yu Ruifen remarked that snacks have evolved from mere supplements to essential components of daily life that enhance happiness, playing a tangible role in expanding domestic demand and stimulating consumption. She recommended continuing to foster a trustworthy consumption environment, supporting corporate innovation in product development and quality improvement to offer more healthy, functional, and youth-oriented products, and smoothing online and offline channels to bring quality food into communities and households, thereby driving consumption upgrades through high-quality supply.
Regarding quality control under the OEM model prevalent in the snack industry, Yu Ruifen emphasized that quality safety is the industry's bottom line. Strengthening oversight at the institutional level requires establishing regulations, defining standards, and clarifying responsibilities, while leveraging digitalization, smart technologies, and AI for efficiency—a path validated by corporate practice. Institutionally, it is necessary to improve unified industry standards for OEM production and market entry, enhance full-chain digital traceability, clarify the bidirectional primary responsibilities of brand owners and OEM manufacturers, and promote collaborative oversight across the supply chain. Simultaneously, increasing supervision and information transparency, guiding industry self-discipline, reinforcing corporate accountability, and establishing a discredited entities blacklist are crucial. The industry is also encouraged to embrace technology, utilizing digital and smart tools for supply chain management and AI for production inspection and risk预警.
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