Abstract: Illegal addition has always been a difficult point in the governance of food safety crimes. At present, there has been a high number of criminal cases related to illegal addition, which involve a wide range of criminal objects and a wide variety of additives. According to its manifestation and harmfulness, illegal addition can be divided into ‘prohibited addition’ and ‘restricted addition’. The judicial interpretation No. 24[2021] of the Supreme People’s Court has improved the criminal regulation system for crimes related to illegal food additives, transmitting the concept of scientific regulation and precision crackdown. However, there are still some problems, such as unclear standards for criminal conviction and inconsistent rules for the application of criminal charges. Therefore, we should break the barriers of scientific and technological standards and legal norms between administrative and criminal regulation, make legal fictions based on scientific research, and clearly delimit the boundary between administrative and criminal regulation in a quantitative way on the basis of the fact that the current judicial interpretation is only qualitative. In addition, in the field of criminal regulation, based on the hierarchy, overlap and inclusiveness between articles 140, 143 and 144 of the criminal law, we should further clarify the legal application logic and rules of ‘restricted addition’ and ‘prohibited addition’ cases, as well as cases involving illegal additives whose toxicity is not clear yet.

Key words: illegal addition; judicial interpretation; food safety crimes; criminal regulation