Singapore Food Safety and Security Act: Flavour Impact

The Food Safety and Security Act 2025 will repeal the Sale of Food Act 1973, but the repeal has not commenced. Only tranche 1 is in force: since 28 November 2025 it is an offence to supply defined food, which includes novel food without pre-market approval, and the Act governs non-packaged drinking water. Regulations 22 and 23 of the Food Regulations still govern flavours.

As of October 2026, the relevant question for a flavour buyer is which provisions have commenced. Sources checked on 3 October 2026. This page is a reading of the instruments, not legal advice. The Act's passage and assent dates establish its legislative history; the commencement entries establish which provisions are operating. Keep those two checks separate when recording the legal basis for an ingredient.

What is in force today and what is not

SFA's FSSA record says Parliament passed the Act on 8 January 2025 and it received assent on 3 February 2025. Singapore Statutes Online identifies it as Act 7 of 2025. SFA records tranche 1 as in force from 28 November 2025, with subsidiary legislation published on 24 November 2025. Commencement Notification S 709/2025 names the provisions brought into operation on 28 November 2025; consult that list for the precise scope.

Tranche 1 governs defined food and non-packaged drinking water. For novel food, defined food means novel food without pre-market approval under section 13(1)(a). Insects are defined food when they are not a catalogued insect-like species under section 13(1)(c). Catalogued insect-like species are outside the novel-food definition in section 13(3). Use the catalogued-list test for insects and the approval test for novel food when reviewing the statutory categories.

What the Act will replace

The enacted Act will repeal the Sale of Food Act 1973 and the Wholesome Meat and Fish Act 1999. As of October 2026, sections 395 and 403, the two repeal provisions, have not commenced. Singapore Statutes Online's commencement record lists section 402 from 27 February 2025 and the 28 November 2025 tranche; neither list includes the repeal provisions. SFA still lists the Sale of Food Act among its legislation.

Why flavour rules did not move

Regulations 22 and 23 of the Food Regulations still govern flavours. Singapore Statutes Online shows the latest amendment as S 92/2025, in force from 30 January 2026, in the current version as at 3 October 2026. The existing Singapore flavouring-regulations reference sets out those clauses. Use it to review the flavour's regulatory basis alongside the commenced FSSA provisions, rather than assuming that the new Act has already displaced the current flavouring rules.

The same reference records that SFA's Guidance Information on Requirements for Food Additives was revised on 19 January 2026, including assessment of new additives derived from precision fermentation. That guidance is not legally binding. A guidance revision and commencement of a repeal are separate events, so the revised guidance does not establish that the Sale of Food Act has ceased to apply. The reference links the guidance alongside the Food Regulations for a clause-level review.

Novel food and flavour ingredients

FSSA section 13(3) defines novel food through four limbs. They cover a substance not used as food to a significant degree for at least 20 years, food made by a process without that period of food-production use, mineral-origin material without that food-use history, and food containing engineered nanomaterials. Catalogued insect-like species are outside that definition. SFA's safety-assessment requirements, section 2.1 provide the companion guidance. Whether a particular flavour ingredient meets the definition is a question to put to SFA.

Businesses that farm, manufacture, distribute or sell novel food must ensure the novel food is covered by pre-market approval, according to SFA's pre-market framework. Approval attaches to the food. Ask the supplier to identify the regulatory basis for the ingredient and the approval covering the novel food where relevant. A process description on its own is insufficient to settle the statutory classification; the review needs to identify the substance, its use history and the process involved.

Questions to ask a supplier now

When briefing a flavour supplier in Singapore, ask whether any ingredient or production process raises a novel-food question and request written confirmation of the regulatory basis. Keep that confirmation with the specification and ingredient declaration. Our SFA flavour-labelling guide and halal flavour-certification guide provide related reading for those documents. A supplier discussion should identify the actual ingredient being assessed before making a regulatory conclusion.

What to watch

Watch the SFA FSSA page and Singapore Statutes Online for later commencement notifications. This article gives the status as of October 2026 and does not assign dates to later tranches. For nutrition reformulation, the Nutri-Grade thresholds reference and Healthier Choice Symbol comparison set out their own dated status. Keep the commencement check with the ingredient review so a later notification can be assessed against the provisions the product actually relies on.