The global market for food supplements is around 120 billion dollars with annual growth figures in recent years of around 6%. The main markets are those of Asia and North America followed by the European market. In Spain, the market for dietary products is around 1 billion euros, of which the sale of food supplements is around 350 million euros with more than 600 companies registered in this sector who market their products mainly in pharmacies, health stores, herbalists, supermarkets and large retailers.
THE MEDICINE-FOOD SUPPLEMENT DUALITY
In recent years there has been a tendency in the industry to transfer botanical products registered as medicine towards food supplements or to position their new products directly as food supplements, a decision possibly motivated by the greater flexibility offered by a supplement compared to a medicine.
The data published by the European Medicines Agency on plant medicine records in the different EU countries will illustrate this: In 2017, there were 100 medicines registered by the traditional use procedure and 33 plant medicines by the well-established use procedure in Spain, which comes to a total of 133 registered plant medicines compared to the thousands of botanical supplements currently marketed in Spain.
HEALTH CLAIMS. NOW EVERYTHING INCLUDES VITAMINS AND MINERALS…
Regulation (EU) 432/2012 establishes a broad list of authorised health claims for foods, most of which are related to vitamins and minerals. The criteria established by EFSA to evaluate the health properties of ingredients other than vitamins and minerals has meant that relatively few have solid scientific evidence to approve a certain health property.
In short, for exactly the same ingredient at the same dose, in the case of medicine –EMEA- it has been chosen that the traditional use of a product is sufficient to have a therapeutic indication; however, if that same ingredient is marketed as a food supplement –EFSA- it has been chosen that the authorisation of a health property claim needs to be supported by at least two randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical studies.
For all these shortcomings, the market always tries to find the least-bad solution, and, in this case, many companies choose to include in their products small amounts of vitamins and minerals along with the main bioactive ingredients that lack approved health claims. The incorporation of vitamins and minerals therefore allows the inclusion of approved health properties in the labelling of the product. This is the case of vitamin B6, for example, which not only helps to reduce tiredness and fatigue, but also has eight other approved health claims that can be consulted in the database of the EU Register of nutrition and health claims made on foods and that is used to declare those properties in the labelling of products with bioactive ingredients whose health properties have not yet been evaluated by EFSA and approved by the Member States.
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Source: https://natacgroup.com/en/news/new-trends-in-the-food-supplement-industry/#_ftn3