Food supplements
Most vitamin, mineral and other dietary supplements are legally classified as food supplements and are regulated under food law.
Food supplements are intended to supplement people’s diets and are not medicines. This means that claims that the supplement can prevent, treat or cure disease are not allowed on the labelling or in the advertising.
The main legislation relating to food supplements is the EC Food Supplements Directive (Directive 2002/46/EC) and the Food Labelling Regulations 1996 (as amended). It is the responsibility of the manufacturer, importer or distributor to comply with the relevant legislation.
The general principles of the legislation are that products have to be safe for consumption and not misleadingly labelled. However, more recently a number of significant changes have been made to food supplements regulation to increase consumer protection and help consumer choice through improved labelling requirements.
As part of the EC Food Supplements Directive, the list of vitamins and minerals and their forms that can be used in food supplements was updated, with the safety of the substances on the list assessed and approved by the European Food safety Authority (EFSA).
The European Commission is also currently in the process of establishing minimum and maximum levels for the vitamins and minerals that can be used in products.
To improve the labelling and consistency of claims made about food across EU member states the Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation (Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006) was adopted in 2006. A health claim is a direct, indirect or implied claim that consumption of any product making the claim carries a specific health benefit (e.g. calcium helps in the development of strong teeth and bones) and a nutrition claim is any claim which states, suggests or implies that a food has particular beneficial nutritional properties due to the presence, absence, increased or reduced levels of energy or of a nutrient or other substance (e.g. high in vitamin C, low in fat).
Nutrition and health claims now have to be agreed at EU level and put onto a central list of permitted claims before they can be used in the advertising, promotion and labelling of food products.
The scientific assessment of claims by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is currently under way and the approved health claims list for vitamins, minerals and other substances (excluding botanicals) is expected to be published in mid-2012.