Supplements manufactured in the EU and sold outside it

Notified is not the same as approved, and the difference travels badly

In the European Union a food supplement is placed on the market by notifying a national authority; nobody assesses and approves the product first. That is efficient inside the single market and it is the source of the most expensive misunderstanding in export: a brand assumes an EU product has been vetted, and presents that to a regulator who works the other way round. Most markets outside the EU register the product itself, review the dossier and issue a number before a single unit may be sold.

The registration is held locally, and that is not a formality

Several markets require the holder of the registration to be established in the country. Morocco registers supplements through its own authority, Egypt works through a pharmacy channel with its own document legalisation chain, and Kenya requires a local technical representative alongside pre-shipment verification of conformity. None of this can be done by the factory, and any manufacturer who says otherwise is selling you something they cannot deliver. What the factory can do is supply a dossier that the local filing is actually built on, complete and consistent, the first time.

Decide the market before the label, not after

Ingredient limits, permitted claims, language requirements and pack sizes differ by destination, and a label designed for the EU rarely survives the move unchanged. Naming the market at the enquiry stage costs nothing; discovering it after ten thousand labels are printed costs the print run and the season.