The European Specialist Sports Nutrition Alliance has tackled 476 reports of non-compliant sports nutrition products across Europe, including those which contain illegal substances or promote misleading claims to consumers.  

ESSNA’s ongoing campaign is to ensure all sports nutrition products are being made and advertised within the correct regulations set out for consumer safety and wellbeing. Since launching the project in 2013, ESSNA has dealt with reports of potentially non-compliant products and worked with brands to educate them about these rules, with the aim of keeping sports nutrition safe and allowing consumers to be confident in the industry. 

Of the 476 alerts that were reported to ESSNA over the last seven years, 117 cases were resolved informally as a direct result of ESSNA contacting the offending company, with 29 of those committing to relabeling or reformulating the product in line with EU law and 31 agreeing to completely withdraw the product in question from the market. 19 of the cases were escalated to the relevant enforcement authorities, including the UK Food Standards Agency and the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, the European Commission, the Italian Ministry of Health, the Portuguese Economic and Food Safety Authority, and the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority, among many others. The remaining alerts are currently still being processed.

Anyone who might be aware of illegal activity by sports nutrition organisations can step forward and report them. Suspected non-compliant activity anywhere in Europe can be reported anonymously via a dedicated form on ESSNA’s website.  

Dr Adam Carey, Chair of ESSNA, said:  

“This campaign is an important part of our work to shape the sports nutrition industry and we are proud to have tackled almost 500 non-compliant products since we began in 2013. Sports nutrition has seen enormous growth in recent years and it’s important that consumers can purchase products with confidence, knowing that they are being produced and advertised in line with the latest legislative regulations.

“The overwhelming majority of the sports nutrition industry works responsibly and strictly follows the regulation put in place by the EU to protect consumers. However, a few misleading products or claims can put consumers at risk. The aim with this campaign is to make sure that doesn’t happen, and keep sports nutrition doing what it does best – supporting consumers to achieve their goals. It is up to all of us in the industry to work together to tackle non-compliant products. And we ask everyone to keep an eye out and report via our website any product which they suspect of breaking the law. 

“We would also urge consumers to buy responsibly. You can do this by looking for the ESSNA trademark, or check out the guides section of our website which has free, downloadable guides to help people get the most out of sports nutrition.” 

 
For more information, please contact Rachel King via [email protected] 

About the European Specialist Sports Nutrition Alliance 
 
The European Specialist Sports Nutrition Alliance is an alliance of European and North American sports nutrition companies that was formed in December 2003. 
 
A full list of members of the Alliance can be found on the website: https://www.essna.com/members/ 

www.essna.com. 
 
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