Across the nutra-verse: Top news from around the world (March 27)

USA​

FDA budget requests hints at mandatory premarket product registration​

Analysis of the proposed 2020 budget for FDA includes a request for mandatory registration of dietary supplements, according to NutraIngredients-USA​.

Ana analysis of the budget by senior political advisors Tricia Knight and Peter Reinecke for the United Natural Products Alliance highlighted FDA’s desire to have the authority to require companies to supply a list of the products they have on the market or are intending to bring to market.

“Under current law, FDA is not clearly authorized to require listing of individual dietary supplement products on the market, and the Agency has no convenient mechanism for compiling basic information about those products,” ​read the FDA budget request.​

“This proposal would require all products marketed as ‘dietary supplements’ to be listed with FDA and give FDA authority to act against non-compliant products and the manufacturers and/or distributors of such products. This would allow FDA to know when new products are introduced, quickly identify and act against dangerous or otherwise illegal products, and improve transparency and promote risk-based regulation.”​

FDA would need new statutory authority to require the product listing, noted Knight and Reinecke.

Europe​

Is CBD a Novel Food? Maybe not… ​

“Hemp extracts were indeed made and sold in products, which would nowadays be called supplements. We are requesting the European Commission to recognize hemp extracts with naturally occurring CBD levels as traditional in food.”​

This is what the European Industrial Hemp Association (EIHA) told the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed (PAFF Committee), prompting European authorities to rethink their decision to classify Cannabidiol (CBD) as a novel food.

EIHA presented evidence indicating that hemp and hemp extracts have been used before May 1997, thereby ruling out its ‘novel food’ status.

A novel food is defined as food that has not been consumed to a significant degree by humans in the EU before 15 May 1997, when the first Regulation on novel foods came into force.

For more on this, please click HERE​​.

Asia​

New sports nutrition launch from Aussie brand VÖOST targets male consumers ​

A key part of VÖOST’s plans to grow domestically and across the APAC region includes a new range of effervescent tablets for men with a sports nutrition positioning.

Co-founder Thomas Siebel told NutraIngredients-Asia​: “Our products so far have been typically more skewed towards the younger female millennial market, and Dustin Martin will attract a larger share of the male market for us.” ​

The Australian brand currently holds about 17% of the market share in Australia's A$65m effervescent vitamin sub-category, which is currently led by Berocca.

The orange-flavored product, called VÖOST Performance, comes in packs of either 20 or 40 tablets, and contains vitamins B and C, along with magnesium, zinc and calcium.