Abstract: The crime of adding unauthorized derivatives to foods is increasingly prevalent. However, the current blacklist-based regulatory approach for food crimes faces significant challenges in the judicial identification of such derivatives, due to their rapid structural variation, toxicity instability, and uncertainty of harm to human health. Administrative determinations issued by market regulatory authorities based on inspection reports and expert opinions have solved the issue of accountability for specific derivatives. However, these determinations raise concerns regarding potential overreach of administrative presumption violating the principle of criminal punishment, the improper use of inspection reports as substantial evidence, and systematic risks associated with self-investigation, self-verification and evidence substitution. To establish a systematic response mechanism for addressing crimes involving the illegal addition of derivatives in foods, we propose the following measures: accelerating the advancement of judicial appraisal, coordination measures, and work guidelines to strengthen institutional support, refining the compliance, reliability, and verification procedures of the “three documents” to standardize the conversion of execution evidence, and jointly promoting the certification of inspection capabilities, the construction of technical standards, and dynamic supervision platforms to break through technical identification barriers.

Key words: derivative-type toxic and harmful non-food raw materials; food crime; inspection report; governance system