HOW TO AVOID PENALTIES IN THE FOOD SUPPLEMENT INDUSTRY – VIDEO
As we have explained several times, there are certain regulations to comply with when marketing food supplements, but how to avoid sanctions in the food supplement sector?
The first thing to keep in mind is that the inspection can come in different forms. Either through the health inspectors that we know so well, as well as through consumer inspectors.
And it is very important that we keep in mind that these inspections can be in situ, in our store, warehouse, at our headquarters…. or that inspector, from his post, can make an inspection of our online store and then come to our physical store or where we have the headquarters, with the inspection report that has been made in the online store. This is very important to avoid penalties in the food supplement industry.
Do inspectors have absolute power?
When inspectors come to make an inspection, they must abide by certain guidelines. They are subject to certain requirements, which are established in control programs.
The National Official Food Safety Control Plan, published by AESAN for the years 2021-2025, establishes the requirements and guidelines that inspectors must take into account when carrying out a health inspection.
What happens if I do not comply with the regulations?
It is very important that we differentiate between facts, infractions and sanctions:
What are the facts?
For example, the label of my food supplement does not comply with the regulations, I have not put the label on it, I have not registered in the Health Registry, my registration in the Health Registry is not correct, or I have not notified the food supplement to the Health Authorities.
These are all facts; if an inspector detects these facts, an infraction occurs. The infraction is regulated by Law 17/2011 on Food Safety. This law establishes a series of issues or a series of infractions, which is where we are going to charge these facts.
Failure to notify a food supplement, misleading the consumer through labeling or missing information is typified by that standard.
There are a series of infractions that are classified as minor, serious or very serious. Normally, all these types of infractions are classified as minor. They become serious when the inspector considers that there is a risk to Public Health and are very serious when there is intentionality on our part.
For minor offenses, the penalty that can be imposed ranges from 0 € to 5,000 €. For serious cases, the range is from €5,001 to €20,000, and for very serious cases, from €21,000 to €600,000.
In addition, we must take into account that in the case of very serious infringements, the inspector may determine the closure of our establishment, warehouse or headquarters, for a maximum period of 5 years.
Our experience
After more than 12 years of experience, we have seen very few infractions classified as very serious. In addition to these economic sanctions that can be imposed on us, other accessory sanctions can also be taken, such as the confiscation of the products, they can suspend the sale of these products, they can tell us to stop selling them for a period of time until this is resolved…
What do we encounter on a daily basis?
In the case of not being properly registered in the Health Registry, that the label does not comply correctly or that the food supplement has not been notified, the penalties are usually between 3,000 € and 5,000 €.
But not always those infractions are correct or well placed. We can defend ourselves, which in fact is what we do at LegaleGo, help our clients to remove that sanction, or that the sanction is much lower, because inspectors, many times, are also wrong.
For example, we recently had the case of a 3,000 € sanction to a customer, because on his label he put “mode of use before training” with the drawing of a weight next to it, when normally the usual is “mode of use”.
So the inspector considered that to be a healthy statement. We made allegations and managed to get the Administration to remove the sanction, because there was no typification of that sanction. In this case, we went from €3,000 to €0.
But the most serious we had was recently in Andalusia, for five labels, a customer was fined no more and no less than 30,000 €. They reviewed five labels of the same product and when reviewing the five labels, they found many facts, many violations and determined a penalty of 30,000 €. Likewise, there were penalties that were not correct, others were incorrectly typified, others lacked proportionality…. But for five poorly made labels where there is no health risk, that infringement was totally disproportionate. We were able to reduce the penalty from 30,000 euros to 14,500 euros.
This is a brief summary of how to avoid penalties in the food supplement industry, the penalties that can be imposed and what can happen if I do not comply with the regulations.
That’s what we at LegaleGo are here for, to help you all comply with the regulations and make sure nothing happens. If you come later, because you have not passed with us that review or that notification of food supplements, we can of course also help you to justify those sanctions and seizures of your products.