Article 4 of the Saudi Food Law

This article identifies the body responsible for setting technical rules in the field of food, which is the Food and Drug Authority. The Authority is the one that issues:

• Technical regulations: which under Article 1 are mandatory documents that describe the characteristics of food or the methods of producing and manufacturing it and the instructions regulating that, including packaging, explanatory information and the product's label.
• Standard specifications for food: which are a non-mandatory document approved by the Authority and contain rules, guiding principles or characteristics of food or the methods of producing it.

The scope of these regulations and specifications is not limited to the food itself, but also covers food facilities, which are the premises and fixed or mobile buildings and the means of transport used by the food establishment, and it also covers the people working in them.

In practice, this means the details of the requirements for products, buildings and workers do not appear in the law itself, but in the documents the Authority issues, so the owner of an establishment must refer to them. Article 5 complements this provision, as the Authority takes international food standard specifications into account when issuing and updating the regulations and specifications.

The distinction between mandatory and non-mandatory matters to the owner of an establishment, since technical regulations are by definition mandatory documents that must be complied with.