Since the legalized management of health food in China from 1996, the development of health food industry has been spiraling. The management policies of health food have undergone great changes for past more than 30 years, and the regulatory departments of health food have changed from the Ministry of Health to the China Food and Drug Administration. In addition to the nutritional supplements, there are 27 kinds of functional claims for the functional health foods. In accordance with the newly revised Law of Food Safety, the regulation of health food has changed from a single registration system to the dual systems of registration and record filing in China. The China Food and Drug Administration is responsible for the registration of health food products which use raw materials other than the Catalogue of Raw Materials for Health Food and imported for the first time. The China Food and Drug Administration is also responsible for the record filing of health food which is imported for the first time, as well as belongs to supplement nutrients such as vitamins and minerals. The Food and Drug Administration of the provinces and municipalities directly under the central government is responsible for the record of health food produced with the catalogue of health food raw materials. The Catalogue of Raw Materials for Health Food (Ⅰ) and the Catalogue of Health Functions that Health Food Claim (Ⅰ) contains only nutrient supplements and the function of nutrients supplementation. In recent years, the China Food and Drug Administration has promulgated a series of policies and regulations on health food products, including the Measures for the Registration and Record Filing of Health Food, the Detailed Rules for the Examination and Approval of Health Food Registration (2016 edition), the Registration and Application of Health Food Service Guide (2016 edition), and the Working Guide of Health Food Record Filing (trial) etc. The systematic summary and analysis of the development process and management policy of health food in China will play an important guiding role in the rapid development of the industry.