When the science moves faster than the rulebook

FMCG regulation protects consumers, but Britain’s health-claims framework must evolve if it wants evidence-led innovation to thrive.

Some of the longest conversations we have had at The Turmeric Co. have been about a single word. Can we say “supports”? Does “recovery” need more context? Will a customer understand the approved wording, or will language written for regulatory precision leave them confused?

It is a strange part of building a functional drinks business. A company can invest heavily in formulation, manufacturing and research, then find that explaining the product clearly becomes one of its hardest challenges.

When my father and I first made turmeric shots, we were trying to support my recovery from injury. Manufacturers later told us the fresh ingredients were too difficult to handle at scale, so we built the capability ourselves. That experience taught me that innovation often moves ahead of the systems surrounding it.

I now see the same tension in regulation.

The purpose of the rules is right. In Great Britain, only authorised nutrition and health claims may be used, subject to the conditions in the Great Britain nutrition and health claims register. The requirements apply across packaging, websites, advertising and social media. Language suggesting that food can prevent, treat or cure disease also crosses an important line towards medicines regulation.

Consumers deserve protection from exaggerated promises. My frustration begins when businesses invest in credible evidence but still struggle to explain what it means.

Customer reviews provide one of the clearest examples. A customer may send a completely genuine account of the difference a product has made to them, but the moment a brand places those words in an advert, they become part of its marketing communication. If the review contains a health claim, it must still align with the authorised framework. The fact that the customer wrote it does not give the brand permission to repeat it.

I understand the principle. Businesses should not be able to sidestep regulation by placing an unsupported claim in somebody else’s mouth. Yet it feels counterintuitive that a genuine customer experience may be unusable. The Advertising Standards Authority makes clear that advertising rules apply equally to testimonials and that a testimonial alone is not evidence.

That matters commercially because reviews are central to how people decide whether to trust a product. In functional food and drink, the stories describing the most meaningful outcomes can be the very ones a responsible brand has to leave out.

Product labelling creates another challenge, particularly for small-format drinks. A bottle must carry ingredients, allergens, nutrition, storage and business information, while also explaining its purpose. Core safety information must remain on the pack, but a digital layer could provide fuller detail about sourcing, formulation and research. A QR code can offer depth that no small bottle can hold.

The larger difficulty is how the system responds to new evidence. A business seeking a new health claim must prepare a scientific dossier. Once an application is valid, the UK Nutrition and Health Claims Committee has five months to provide its opinion. A public comment period follows, and the authorities then have two months to decide. Further questions can extend the process.

A multinational may have the specialist teams and capital to absorb that journey. For a growing FMCG business, it can influence whether research is commissioned and where limited investment goes. Because much of the authorised wording centres on familiar vitamins and minerals, brands also tend to communicate through those nutrients even when the real innovation sits elsewhere. Different products start to sound similar.

The answer is to modernise the route while keeping the evidential standard high. Regulators could provide structured scientific guidance before an application begins, with clearer expectations around study design, evidence and product information. We also need transparent target times, more frequent register updates and better coordination between health-claim, novel-food and medicines-borderline assessments.

Brands have responsibilities too. Claims strategy, advertising and substantiation must be considered from the beginning. Every business should be able to show the evidence behind its statements and explain it without exaggeration.

Britain can build a framework in which strong regulation and ambitious innovation reinforce each other. Give credible evidence a clearer route to the consumer, and responsible British FMCG brands will be better placed to earn trust and compete on what they can genuinely prove.

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