Scope
These regulations apply to food imported into, produced, and processed in Fiji for consumption in Fiji or for export. Regulation 29 adopts Codex Alimentarius contaminant limits as the default unless Fiji law specifies a different limit. Regulation 30 applies the chemical-contaminant limits in the Eleventh Schedule, and the natural-mineral-water commodity standard sets additional packaged-water metal limits.
Exact limit and units
| Metal | Matrix | Limit | Unit | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arsenic (tAs) | Edible fats and oils, named animal fats, named vegetable oils, olive oils and olive pumice oils, and fats spreads and blended spreads | 0.1 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Arsenic (tAs) | Salt | 0.5 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Cadmium (Cd) | Salt | 0.5 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Cadmium (Cd) | Muscle meat of fish, excluding those listed below | 0.05 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Cadmium (Cd) | Muscle meat of bonito (Sarda sarda), horse mackerel or scad (Trachurus, trachurus), sardine (Sardina pilcardus), sardinops (Sardinops species), spotted seabass (Dicentrarchus punctatus), tuna (Thunnus species and Euthynnys species) | 0.1 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Cadmium (Cd) | Crustaceans, excluding brown meat of crab and excluding head and thorax meat of lobster and similar large crustaceans (Nephropidae and Palinuridae) | 0.5 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Cadmium (Cd) | Cephalopods (without viscera) | 1.0 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Lead (Pb) | Edible fats and oils | 0.2 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Lead (Pb) | Named animal fats, named vegetable oils, olive oils and olive pumice oils, and fats spreads and blended spreads | 0.1 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Lead (Pb) | Canned corned beef, canned luncheon treat and sugars | 0.5 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Lead (Pb) | Salt | 2 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Lead (Pb) | Jam and jelly | 0.5 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Lead (Pb) | Infant formula | 0.02 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Lead (Pb) | Muscle meat of fish, excluding those listed below | 0.2 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Lead (Pb) | Muscle meat of bonito (sarda sarda), horse mackerel or scad (Trachurus, trachurus), sardine (sardine pilcardus), sardinops (sardinops species), spotted seabass (Dicentrarchus punctatus), tuna (Thunnus species and Euthynnys species) | 0.4 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Lead (Pb) | Crustaceans, excluding brown meat of crab | 0.5 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Lead (Pb) | Cephalopods (without viscera) | 1.0 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Total mercury (tHg) | Sharks (all species), Tuna (Thunnus spp,), Little tuna (Euthynnus spp,), Bonito (Sarda spp,), Plain bonito (Orcynopsis unicolor), Swordfish (Xiphias gladius), Sailfish (Istiophorus platypterus), Marlin (Makaira spp,), Bass (Dicentrarchus labrax), Portuguese dogfish (Centroscymnes coetolepis), Rays, (Raja spp,), Anglerfish (Lophius spp,), Emperor or Orange roughy (Hoplostethus atlanticus), Bonito (Sarda Sarda), Grenadier (Coryphaenoides rupestris), Plain bonito (Orcynopsis unicolor), Snake mackerel or Butterfish (Lepidocybium Havobrunneum, Ruvettus pretiosus, Gempylus serpens) | 1.0 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Total mercury (tHg) | All other species of fish other than those described in section (16) above | 0.5 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Mercury (tHg) | Salt | 0.1 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Tin (Sn) | Canned corned beef and canned luncheon meat (containers other than tinplate) | 50 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Tin (Sn) | Canned corned beef and canned luncheon meat (tinplate containers) | 200 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Tin (Sn) | Canned jam and jelly (containers other than tinplate) | 50 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Tin (Sn) | Canned jam and jelly (tinplate containers) | 200 | mg/Kg | mg/Kg |
| Arsenic (tAs) | Natural mineral water in its packaged state | 0.05 | mg/l | mg/l |
| Cadmium (Cd) | Natural mineral water in its packaged state | 0.005 | mg/l | mg/l |
| Chromium (Cr-total) | Natural mineral water in its packaged state | 0.1 | mg/l | mg/l |
| Lead (Pb) | Natural mineral water in its packaged state | 0.05 | mg/l | mg/l |
| Mercury (tHg) | Natural mineral water in its packaged state | 0.002 | mg/l | mg/l |
How tested
The regulation provides sampling and analysis procedures in Part III and treats a product as non-compliant when any one sample unit contains a chemical contaminant above the applicable schedule level. The natural-mineral-water limits are expressed in mg/l; the food-schedule values are expressed in mg/Kg.
Enforcement posture
The regulations are made under section 70 of the Food Safety Act 2003. Regulation 30 applies the Eleventh Schedule limits to products imported into, produced, and processed in Fiji, and a product exceeding a schedule level is non-compliant.
History of changes
The PDF identifies the instrument as Legal Notice No. 20 and cites the regulations as the Food Safety Regulations 2009. It states that the regulations come into force on the day they are published in the Gazette. Only the year is available in the local text, so the frontmatter records 2009-01-01 as the year-known effective date.
How it compares
Fiji uses Codex Alimentarius as the general fallback for contaminant limits, but the Eleventh Schedule and natural-mineral-water standard create Fiji-specific numeric limits for several heavy metals. The Fiji-specific schedule is narrower than omnibus food-contaminant tables such as EU or Codex CXS 193: it focuses on fats and oils, salt, infant formula, fishery products, selected canned foods, jam and jelly, and natural mineral water. Arsenic and mercury are not speciated except where the natural-mineral-water arsenic row states total arsenic, so the structured rows record them as tAs and tHg.
Sources
Update history
The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git. When DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.
| Commit | Date | Change | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| a8052bb | 2026-08-09 | major | 1 source added; contamination-profile values revised; 7 sections added |