Last week’s top headlines included the U.S. FDA publishing the 2026 priorities for its Human Foods Program, updates to EFSA’s QPS (qualified presumption of safety) list, and Chemist Warehouse’s plans to build the NMN category in Australia.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration Human Foods Program’s 2026 priority deliverables, published on Jan. 23, are drawing mixed reactions from dietary supplement industry stakeholders, many of whom expressed concern over innovation constraints.
Promising “a dramatic and determined focus across the federal government to recognize the importance of food and nutrition in improving the health of all Americans,” the agenda is focused on strengthening food safety, advancing nutrition to combat chronic disease and enhancing chemical safety.
For the dietary supplement industry, there are four notable deliverables that the agency plans to advance: GRAS reform, regulating new dietary ingredients, dietary supplement oversight modernization and guidelines for caffeine labeling. Other deliverables that would impact some supplement companies include reducing contaminants in food for infants and young children via the Closer to Zero initiative, the adoption of natural color additives, a consumer exposure to contaminants in food study and more transparency in allergen labeling.
Ivan Wasserman, managing partner, Amin Wasserman Gurnani LLP, has been advising on dietary supplement regulation for over 30 years.
“If this ambitious agenda comes to fruition, we could be looking at the most impactful changes to the industry since the GMP regulations were promulgated in 2007,” he said.
EFSA has published its scientific opinion on the safety of several microorganisms, confirming new microbes eligible for streamlined safety assessments.
The update has been published in EFSA’s latest QPS (qualified presumption of safety) update, which evaluated more than 300 notifications between 2022 and 2025.
One of the most notable additions to the positive list is Bacteriophages, which were previously ineligible for the QPS status, but are now deemed to be safe at the species level.
Research shows that Bacteriophages—viruses that attack and kill specific bacteria—can survive oral administration, avoid antibiotic resistance and eliminate a certain strains of unwanted bacteria without disrupting the rest of the microbiome, opening significant opportunities for innovation.
The QPS is a positive list of microbes which EFSA has evaluated for safety purposes. EFSA conducts safety assessments on microbes which were submitted to the agency as part of technical dossiers for safety assessments.
Leading Australian pharmacy chain Chemist Warehouse plans to build up the country’s nascent nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) category by focusing on affordability, accessibility and education.
Following NMN’s approval by the Australian authority for use in health supplements last month, Chemist Warehouse has been selling NMN supplements at prices lower than those in overseas markets.
Offering NMN supplements at lower prices is one of the strategies the discount pharmacy chain is using to build Australia’s NMN supplement category.
“I think NMN is very premium in a lot of markets,” Daniel Kinder, head of vitamins at Chemist Warehouse, told NutraIngredients. “From a cost perspective, we are making it more affordable for Australians to access this ingredient.”
