Over half of Britain’s health food stores could be forced to close if the European Commission imposes tough new limits on daily vitamin and mineral doses under the Food Supplements Directive (FSD).

That’s the stark warning from the National Association of Health Stores (NAHS) which recently polled retailers on the likely impact of the FSD on their businesses and on customer choice.

The NAHS says its survey confirms that in the worst-case scenario — in which maximum permitted levels (MPLs) are pegged to very low levels across Europe — the UK market would be “decimated” and that “millions of consumers would be denied products of their choice as many higher dose specialist supplements are removed from sale”. 

The NAHS warns that this worst-case scenario is now regarded as the most likely option to be adopted by the Commission, which has indicated that it is prepared to “sacrifice” higher potency products to achieve EU harmonization on MPLs.

John McKee, Chairman of NAHS, said:  “The British negotiating team, led by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) have done their best to secure an outcome that allows maximum consumer choice by lobbying for a two tier system. The main problem is that most other Member States seem quite happy to accept the ‘one-size fits all’ approach of very low dose levels being proposed.” 

McKee continued: “Our survey was conducted in direct response to the FSA Regulatory Impact Assessment on setting daily dose levels of vitamins and minerals in food supplements, and we found the results quite shocking. It is clear that half of all independent health food shops face extinction by 2009 and it is quite likely that the bigger chains could reduce their numbers. It would be impossible for many to stay in business as consumers switch their allegiance to unregulated overseas Internet sources to obtain the supplements they need. 

• The NAHS poll is based on responses from 176 stores out of an approximate total of 1200 health stores nationally.