NHPNZ Position – Dietary Supplements

Current Regulatory Settings

Dietary Supplements in New Zealand are regulated as a special kind of food. Dietary Supplements are regulated by the Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985 that sit under the Food Act 2014. 

Regulating dietary supplements under food law is consistent with international norms – most of the world regulates products that are dietary supplements under food law.  Even though DS sit mostly within Food Law, many countries apply their own specific regulations for composition, manufacturing and labelling.

(There are a couple of exceptions to this approach including in Australia where dietary supplements are regulated as medicines).

The Food Act, Animal Products Act and the Dietary Supplements Regulations (DSR) provide a framework that requires products to be both Safe and Suitable for their intended purpose and prescribes NZ manufacturing standards.

The DSR requires consumers to be informed about product ingredients and their quantities.

The DSR and consumer law protects consumers from false and misleading claims.

Various New Zealand laws prevent DS from containing medicines, drugs of abuse psychoactive substances, and hazardous substances, whilst the Food Act requires dietary supplements to be both safe and suitable.

Exporters ensure that products comply with importing countries regulations including composition, manufacturing and labelling.

Impact of Out-of-Date Regulations

The DSR have not been updated to keep pace with modern international norms.

Critically, for exports, the DSR do not exempt exports from the requirements of the New Zealand regulations – there is no export-only option.

New Zealand is foregoing an estimated $500 million per year in dietary supplement export revenue because the regulatory settings are outdated. NHPNZ is publicly tracking this loss in real time via a live ticker on our website.

This has created an impossible situation where exported products are not permitted to meet the requirements of importing countries.

In this regard NZ is not aligned with international norms where other countries permit exports to comply with importing country requirements.

Other aspects of the DSR are also severely out of date including:

• Prohibition on any therapeutic claims
• Maximum daily doses for vitamins and minerals
• Permitted inactive ingredients

Over many years regulatory creep has occurred in the regulator’s interpretation of the dietary supplements/medicines interface, resulting in a shifting goalposts approach and uncertainty for industry – mostly regarding composition and permitted claims.

Attempts at regulatory reform over the years

There have been a number of attempts to reform regulations for dietary supplements over decades.  Most of these have proposed harmonisation or adoption of the Australian scheme where dietary supplements are regulated as medicines.

These attempts have failed repeatedly because there has been overwhelming opposition in NZ to adopting the Australian scheme which is not aligned to international norms.

At one stage a stand-alone scheme for Natural Health Products was introduced, but this was also withdrawn before it could become law.  This scheme was to include dietary supplements along with other product classes such as topical products and homeopathy.

The current government has stated that they intend to draft a new NHP scheme, but only after the new legislation for medicine and medical products has progressed.  The latest comment from the MoH on this is that it is “on their radar” which we interpret to mean it is a long way off.

NHPNZ Position on Regulatory Reform

NHPNZ position is that meaningful improvements to the DSR can be made immediately, especially now that the DSR sit properly under the Food Act, (after some technical changes were made in late 2024).

To this end we have proposed a number of changes to regulations that can be made quickly without the need for new legislation.

Our proposed amendments would resolve critical issues impacting the sector to provide for:

• Dietary Supplements for export-only
• Compositional improvements for domestic and export
• Improved clarity for the interpretation of the DSR

Our proposals can be seen in detail in our submission to MPI found here

Our proposed amendments have been carefully considered along with expert policy advice from our legal counsel to ensure that products meet the requirements of safe and suitable and NZ Inc is protected globally.

What we do not propose

For clarity:

• NHPNZ is not seeking to widen the definition of a dietary supplement to include substances that are medicines.
• NHPNZ is not seeking “blanket” export exemption. Our proposal includes controls ensuring products must meet all importing countries requirements to protect Brand NZ.
• NHPNZ is not seeking to move products that are regulated as medicines into becoming dietary supplements. Products that are regulated under the Medicines Act, including products that are Herbal Remedies (in the Act) are not in any way part of our proposed regulatory amendments.
• NHPNZ is not seeking to impinge upon Practitioner activity in any way shape or form. Practitioners supplying products as medicines (either compositionally or by way of consultation for a therapeutic purpose) are not in any way part of our proposed regulatory amendments.

NHPNZ Position on Harmonisation with Australia

Although harmonisation with Australia may be desirable as part of the TTRMA, it does not make sense for dietary supplements, because the Australian framework regulates dietary supplements as medicines.  The Australian scheme is a global outlier not aligned with international norms.  Harmonisation would introduce additional unnecessary red tape and costs without a demonstrable benefit to consumers or NZ inc. It would also require a dedicated and resource heavy regulator – an approach that is at odds with current government priorities and the economic situation in both the public and private sector. Harmonisation with Australia would introduce new non-tariff trade barriers severely restricting dietary supplement product imports with important trading partners that operate under a food legislation model – e.g trade from UK/EU, USA, India.

NHPNZ is also aware that consequentially MPI would intend for significant modifications to the NZ only Supplemented Food Standard which would likely remove permissions for supplementation with many substances currently permitted under that standard.  Such modification would have a significant impact on trade under that standard, both domestically and in export markets.

Therefore, NHPNZ does not support harmonisation with Australia for dietary supplements regulations (or natural health products).

Regulatory Reform Activity – Update May 2026

In late November 2025 NHPNZ provided a submission on behalf of members to MPI’s proposed amendments to DS Regs.  You can read our full DS Regs submission here.

We understood MPIs intention was to progress with amendments prior to the end of 2025.  No progress has occurred to date (May 2026).

Late 2025 the Ministry for Regulation released consultation on a Labelling Review that included Dietary Supplements labelling.  You can read our full Labelling Review submission here.

Substances Suitable for Dietary Supplements

As part of the submission process it has become clear that MoH and MPI appear to have developed a new interpretation of Section 2A of the DSR “Meaning of a Dietary Supplement”.  The new interpretation is that substances not normally derived from food are not permitted in dietary supplements.

An article in Chinese Media reported statements attributed to Medsafe that appeared to take similar approach.  You can read our statements to Members and the articles here.

NHPNZ rejects this interpretation.  It is incorrect.  Both historically and operationally, substances that are not normally derived from food have always been suitable for dietary supplements providing they are Safe and Suitable and are not prohibited by other law.

Members can find more information in the Regulatory Resources for Members page (requires login).