Leading healthy nutrition experts focus on dietary supplements standardization in Russia
Participants of an international conference held in Moscow organized by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RUIE) with the participation of representatives from specialized agencies of the executive and legislative branches of the Russian government, as well as international organizations, have called for an active search for a stricter standardization of production and distribution of dietary biologically active additives (BAAs) in the country.
Apart from the RUIE members, the conference was attended by Sergei Furgal, the chairman of the State Duma’s HealthCare Committee’s Subcommittee for Prophylactic Treatment and Insurance of Healthy Lifestyle, Konstantin Leonidov, the director of the Department of the State Policy in the Area of Technical Regulation and Uniform Measurement Assurance of the Ministry of Industry and Trade (Minpromtorg), Minpromtorg’s Technical Regulation and Standardization Council Chairman Andrei Lotsmanov; as well as Vasilios Frankos, an expert from the International Alliance of Dietary/Food Suplements Associations (IADSA).
The call for toughening BAAs standardization
The driving force behind the discussion and call for the development of a national standard of production and distribution of BAAs in Russia was the RUIE’s Subcommittee for the Optimal Nutrition Industry and Healthy Lifestyle Products. The conference came to the conclusion that elaboration and adoption of clear standards will enable the introduction of uniform and transparent rules, which will place requirements on a safety level, increase market participants’ liability and help form a new set of quality criteria for nutritional products that consumers use in Russia.
The necessity for such measures today, in the opinion of chief speakers at the conference, stems from the increasing number of complaints about BAAs received by the supervisory authorities and harmful influence of low-quality dietary supplements on people’s health, as well as the irresponsible attitudes of corrupt industry operators on this rapidly growing market.
“The necessity for tighter regulations stems from the increasing number of oversight organs’ complaints against BAAs and the harmful influence of low-quality dietary supplements on citizens’ health.”
Based on the Euromonitor International’s data, the vitamins and dietary BAAs market turnover in 2011 increased by approximately 13% to R42bln, a figure that means that the size of the industry had practically doubled since 2006. Also, it is worth noting that the share of dietary BAAs in this volume totaled R26bln, which also exceeded the 2010 level by 13%. Besides, based on the DMS Group’s data, the volume of the Russian dietary BAAs market has increased almost 15-fold in the last 10 years, from R1.3bln in 2002 to R20.3bln in 2011.
Even at the height of the economic crisis in 2010, the market growth rate was still high, pegging at 8%, while the sector’s turnover amounted to R22.8bln. In the current year, as compared to 2011, the growth rate will, as expected, amount to almost 6%, which will put the market’s absolute turnover at R44.5bln, as compared to R42bln in 2011.
The experts at the conference believe that the vitamins and dietary BAAs market will exhibit a growth rate of 30% per annum over the next five years to R54.7bln by 2016. Undoubtedly, such a major segment of the healthy nutrition sector more than deserves a close attention to product quality guaranty, much stricter and better regulation on behalf of the state as a whole and its specialized agencies in particular.
Commenting on the proposed solutions for standardization, Viktor Cherepov, the RUIE’s executive deputy president and the head of the organization’s Health Committee, noted that a number of areas of the optimal nutrition sector still experiences problems caused by some industry operators’ non-compliance with responsible business practices. “All the segments of the Russian healthy nutrition market and its innovative sector – optimal nutrition – have a pressing necessity to form both specialized technical regulations requiring mandatory application as well as voluntary standardization for the purpose of further stable development of this area of our consumer products market.”
“The goals of standardization include improvement in the quality and safety of lives, citizens’ health and harmonization of domestic market’s business operandi with the world’s best industry practices in the field of BAAs production.”
Alexander Zazhigalkin, Russia’s deputy director of the Federal Metrology and Standardization Agency, sees standardization as an important instrument for much stricter regulation of this market. “After all, the goals of standardization include improvement in the quality and safety of lives, citizens’ health, harmonization of domestic market’s business operandi with the world’s best industry practices as well as the development of conscientious competition, innovations, conditions for development of entrepreneurial efforts based on improved quality of goods, jobs and services.
The same view was also shared by Academician Viktor Tutelyan, the chief scientific secretary of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and the head of the RUIE’s Healthcare Committee’s Optimal Nutrition and Healthy Lifestyle Products Industry Subcommittee. “Rampant cases of unscrupulous behaviors and practices by some dietary BAAs manufacturers do not only undermine the reputation of the entire sector, but also that of the economy as a whole,” noted Tutelyan, who also doubles as the director of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences’ Nutrition Research and Development Institute. “This type of practices can lead to negative consequences for Russia as it seeks integration in the international economic space.”
Absolute irresponsibility damages citizens’ health and industry’s reputation
Tutelyan sees the absolute irresponsibility of “fly-by-night” producers and sellers of food supplements as very harmful to people’s health. As a consequence, it could lead to consumers becoming “very wary” of using optimal nutrition products, including all forms of dietary BAAs. “Refusal to use dietary BAAs, which are carriers of useful ingredients, including vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, etc., as a result of the rampancy of gross falsification of information and violation of quality requirements, will negatively influence the health and life quality of people, as well as catastrophically reducing the organism’s inbuilt protection against adverse natural factors.”
However, Anatoly Kutyshenko, Deputy Head of the RUIE’s Subcommittee for the Optimal Nutrition Industry and Healthy Lifestyle Products, condemns the fact that the existing industry’s legal framework in the sphere of dietary BAAs circulation is not contained in a single regulatory document and the absence of a universally accepted definition of what constitutes a “a dietary or food supplement” in the country. “Today, there are currently about 50 different regulatory documents as well as a dozen memos and methodical recommendations by the Consumer Rights Protection Service that directly or indirectly regulate the production and circulation of optimal nutrition products in our country.”
Kutyshenko further noted that dietary BAAs production in Russia is currently directly regulated by only one legal document, and that is the Sanitary SanPiN Standard, or “The Hygienic Requirements regulating the Production and Circulation of Dietary Supplements in Russia” that was adopted in June 2003. “In the environment of the Customs Union, these requirements have also been included in the list of ‘Uniform Sanitary and Epidemiological Requirements on Safety and Nutritional Value of Foodstuffs that are Subject to Sanitary and Epidemiological Control.”
“Rampant cases of unscrupulous behaviors and practices by some dietary BAAs manufacturers do not only undermine the reputation of the entire sector, but also that of the economy as a whole.”
The expert says that a single target-oriented document that effectively regulates the dietary BAAs sector so far does not exist. “All the technical regulations of the Customs Union, including those already adopted and those in the process of adoption, only partially touch on dietary BAAs that are specialized food products category, which differs from categories such as ‘food additive’ or ‘specialized foodstuffs,’ including those designated for dietetic, therapeutic, and preventive nutrition’.”
Based on the results of the discussions at RUIE conference, the delegates planned to create a special work group that will include top experts from RUIE’s Health Subcommittee, EU, Russian government’s specialized agencies - Rosstandart, Rospotrebnadzor, Health, Industry and Trade Ministries, as well as the Research and Development Institute for Nutrition of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. Their mission is to develop national standards for regulation of dietary BAAs, their production, distribution and circulation in Russia.
It is expected that the end product of the work group experts’ efforts will take into account the experience of IADSA, as a key developer and enforcer of quality standards and requirements in the area of dietary BAAs production and circulation, on the international arena.
The fruit of the brainstorming sessions of the Russian and foreign experts in the sphere of healthy nutrition, standardization of foodstuffs and food supplements were reflected in the final official resolutions passed at the conference, which the organizers have promised to bring to the attention of key decision makers overseeing these issues in the Russian government so as to work out solutions to all the problems and shortcomings voiced at the conference.
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