The NutraIngredients Awards are back for 2023 with new categories but the same commitment to honour the best and brightest in ingredients, finished products, companies, people, and initiatives in the dietary supplements industry.
Economic pressures have thrown the supplements industry a curveball with inflation fuelling “a perfect storm” as lower productivity and increased prices spill into the global supply chain. This has created a domino effect all the way to consumers, says...
Usage of food supplements remains high across Europe, with almost 90% of respondents to a recent survey reporting to using the products, with trust in the reliability of information from brands also high, says a new survey.
Europeans rely ‘more and more’ on food supplements but are being let down by a ‘patchy regulatory network’ governing a market awash with dodgy products and claims, the EU’s premier consumer rights group has found in a sector report.
There is a clear divide in the way the THMPD has been implemented across Europe, with the UK and Germany on one side; Italy, France and Belgium on the other.
On the back of findings that up to 40% of herbal supplements are mislabelled or contain adulterants, a University of Westminster researcher is calling for an industry regulated scheme to quash adulteration.
There have been several cases of the dangerous stimulant 1,3-dimethylamylamine (DMAA) being blocked at the EU borders over the last few months. But what is being done to stem the flow of the outlawed ingredient?
The Dutch supplements industry is celebrating a court ruling that sleep aid melatonin cannot be classed as a medicine if its dosage is above a certain threshold.
ANH: UK Court gives MHRA 'firm rap across the knuckles'
The UK Court of Appeal has ruled that glucosamine products above 1500 mg can be sold as food supplements, but has urged the UK medicines agency to look at the matter.
'Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.' Nice idea, one uttered by Greek doctor Hippocrates centuries ago, but best not mention it at the next Tesco future investments pow-wow. It seems the mainstreaming of nutrition is an idea whose...
Over half of so-called 100% natural botanical slimming supplements are adulterated with unlabelled pharmaceuticals, according to French tests of 164 products.
Levels of carcinogenic PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) in EU supplements vary widely from under safe limits to way over, according to a European Commission study ahead of new regulation on the issue.
Manufacturers of food supplements containing botanical extracts may be caught unawares by a new EU regulation on PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) which entered into force last month, warns Frutarom.
Doses of lacto-N-neotetraose and 2'‑O-fucosyllactose in foods and supplements for children aged 1-10 years could mean intakes linked to mild gastrointestinal symptoms in adults, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) said in a second novel food...
Special edition: Inside Europe’s food supplement markets
Doped athletes continue blaming contaminated food supplements as a convenient alibi, but it’s a thin excuse getting thinner as the mainstream supplements industry moves even higher up the quality chain, says UK-based food law expert Dr Mark Tallon.
Special edition: Inside Europe’s food supplement markets
European food supplement groups share insights from the law to distribution to marketing and science in this Q&A on the €7bn European supplements sector, according to Euromonitor International.
A European Commission report has concluded the EU food supplements market remains fragmented but member state actions in areas like botanicals and maximum levels for some vitamins and minerals were worthy of replication, especially as internet trading...
A BBC investigation in the UK has questioned quality control in the botanicals sector, especially those sold as food supplements. The industry has called for greater enforcement.
The French food safety agency is investigating risks associated with the intake of vitamins and minerals from food supplements during pregnancy after it received two reports of termination on medical grounds.
The death of a 45-year-old British man who overdosed on ‘T5’ fat burning food supplements is tragic but not indicative of an under-regulated supplements industry, say trade groups.
By Luca Bucchini, Hylobates Consulting managing director
The EU is old enough and ugly enough to get itself out of its botanical rut, so what's the hold up? Dr Luca Bucchini, managing director of Hylobates Consulting, asks.
Supplement use in Germany is taking people over tolerable upper intake limits in only a few cases involving magnesium, calcium and zinc, and this largely applies to elderly individuals, according to a survey.
France’s nutrivigilence work – launched in 2010 to ensure safety in food supplements and some foodstuffs – has improved the quality of the food supply, the country’s food safety agency has said.
The trade group Food Supplements Europe (FSE) and UK pro-supplements lobby group Consumers for Health Choice (CHC) take differing views on Europe’s food supplements markets and what is best for them and consumers. We present them here…
Scientists have provided ‘proof of principle’ that a type of spectroscopy can rapidly detect the presence of the banned substance sibutramine – the most prolific adulterant in weight loss food supplements. They say it can be a game-changer for the border...
UK supplements group, Consumers for Health Choice (CHC), is targeting newly elected Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in a campaign to raise awareness around still-up-for-grabs maximum permitted limits (MPLs) for vitamins and minerals in food...
Food supplements are classified by EU law as foodstuffs and so the recently implemented Food Information to Consumers (FIC) regulation has the potential to impact food supplements. Is there much to worry about? Legal experts say yes in this guest article…
The €2bn EU botanical food supplements market has been boosted by France’s imminent adoption of a 600-strong, positive list based on the well-regarded BELFRIT list, according to industry sources.
Spanish supplier Biosearch Life has signed a deal with an Austrian pharma firm to supply its breast milk probiotic-based strain to food supplements in 10 central and eastern European countries.
Lithuania has sent a list of 182 botanicals it intends to ban in food supplements to the European Commission in a move one major supplier called “a step back” for EU harmonisation and free trade.
Ginkgo, evening primrose, artichoke, aloe, fennel, valerian, soy, lemon balm, echinacea and blueberry are the most popular and 1-in-5 Europeans take plant food supplements (PFS), a 4-year study has concluded.
The UK Food standards Agency (FSA) is asking for expert views on a novel foods application for the use of cycloastragenol in food supplements in the EU.
If the nutritional supplements sector is to ever cast off its reputation for ‘dangerous’ and unlabelled contaminants then big online retails must embrace and enforce stricter anti-doping policies, argues Luca Bucchini, PhD.
For 12 days the 22nd Winter Olympiad in Sochi, Russia, had escaped the scourge of doping. It may not have escaped the scourge of homophobic ranting from its paragon-of-progress president, Vladimir Putin, but it had been drug-free.
Athletics Australia (AA) is wrong to warn its young and elite athletes off food and sports supplements as they can provide benefits at next-to-no risk, Europe’s sports nutrition sector has said.
Athletics Australia (AA) – the body that represents elite athletes – is set to warn Australia’s best sports people that food supplements cannot be trusted to be contamination-free and deliver scant benefits.
"These are food products. We have never suggested our products are medicines..."
The UK food supplements industry has joined its US counterparts in condemning Annals of Internal Medicine research that concluded vitamins are useless and even harmful in some cases.
The UK hospital system spends more on food supplements and medical food than it does on regular food, a situation that has provoked protest today – but the government says it is based on genuine need.
Fat burning food supplements containing a combination of caffeine and synephrine are dangerous, according to Finnish authorities which have called for their removal from shelves.
Controversial and widely despised EU health claim laws are benefitting its business and the wider food supplements market, according to leading Spanish manufacturer, Forté Pharma.
HFMA: “The report ignores the significant efforts by UK manufacturers’ to comply with the regulation...”
The UK food supplements industry has hit back at the consumer watchdog there that today slammed some of Europe’s biggest manufacturers like Seven Seas, Vitabiotics and Boots for deceiving consumers with unsubstantiated health claims.
Dutch authorities have issued a warning against a US fat burning food supplement called Dexaprine after 11 adverse reactions including hospitalisations and severe heart problems.
Yohimbe plant extracts are unlikely to gain sale in Europe after the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) found this week the available data was too weak to allow it to pass a safety verdict.
Updated EU regulations on the limits for silicon dioxide and silicate in food supplements have been welcomed by Food Supplements Europe after the members of the trade body spotted an error in legislation.
A former EFSA Scientific Committee chairman says the European Union’s stalled assessment of botanical extract claims, safety and use needs a multilateral rethink before any progress can be made.
TV advert claims for Pfizer owned Centrum multivitamins that used EU-approved health claims were still misleading because they did not make clear that a balanced diet could be achieved without supplements, the UK advertising watchdog has found.
Better dialogue with regulators and scientists is the main purpose of a new European food supplements group formed today by a diverse alliance of national groups and ingredients and supplement players – both small and large.
