The person or company selling the supplement must be able to demonstrate that the substance is safe, not classified as a drug, narcotic drug, novel food or dangerous good. 

What can food supplements contain?

In the case of vitamins and minerals, only those listed in the Food Supplements Directive may be used in food supplements. There is no complete list of substances that may be present in food supplements. Nor can the NFA pre-screen or approve a particular product. 

Producing and selling dietary supplements

When you start a new business selling dietary supplements, you need to register it with the municipality. The municipality will then become your control authority and are the ones who carry out control of your business. A notification of registration must be made no later than two weeks before the start of the activity. If you intend to handle, manufacture or repackage food supplements consisting of animal ingredients, such as the repackaging of fish oil capsules, you need to be approved by the National Food Agency. 

On our website, Start Food Businesses, we have gathered general information that you may find useful when starting your business. There are also links to pages about information and labelling, premises and hygiene and other things that may be important to know. 

Responsibility and information about dietary supplements

On our website, Kosttillskott för företagare, we have gathered information about dietary supplements where you can read about the rules that apply and you can also read about registration and approval, how dietary supplements are defined, what responsibilities you have as a dietary supplement business owner, how control of dietary supplements goes to and much more related to the trade of dietary supplements. There are also links to other pages where there may be information that you also need, for example about e-commerce and how to find out if a food should possibly be classified as a Novel Food.

In addition to the general food labelling rules, food supplements shall be labelled with additional information. Guidance is available on our website - Märkning av kosttillskott.

Hope the information and guidance available will help you move forward in your process.