After classification

 

Products classified as medicinal products

Following a product’s classification as a medicinal product, it can no longer be sold as food. A marketing authorisation must be applied to all products classified as medicinal products before they are placed on the market. The person or company marketing the product has the responsibility to choose the appropriate sales channel and to withdraw the product from food stores. Competent supervisory authorities can intervene if the product is not sold in accordance with the law. More information about marketing authorisations.

Products classified as non-medicinal products

Products classified as non-medicinal products may later on be sold as food, cosmetics, biocide or medical device etc.

Food supplements

In the national degree on food supplements (78/2010) a food supplement is described as a pre-packed product in the form of a briquette, capsule, pastille, tablet, pill, powder, concentrate, extract or liquid, or in some other equivalent dose form, marketed as a foodstuff to be taken in measured small unit quantities whereby the amount of energy received has no relevance to the diet as a whole.

Food supplements include e.g. products designed for the intake of e.g. vitamins, minerals, fibre, fatty acids and lecithin as well as herbal, garlic and bee products.

According to the national degree on food supplements (78/2010) an economic operator who manufactures, imports or has a food supplement manufactured with a view to placing it on the Finnish market on his own behalf, shall submit a written notification to Finnish Food Authority before the initiation of the activity. A notification shall also be submitted in the case that the composition of the product is changed as to the substances that characterise it or when the product exits the market.