Dietary supplements are extremely popular in Poland. According to expert research, 75% of Poles regularly consume dietary supplements, spending an average of over PLN 200 (approximately EUR 48) per year on them. This level of spending reflects both the growing health awareness of consumers and the intensive advertising campaigns carried out by supplement manufacturers and distributors.
Advertising of dietary supplements is quite extensively regulated in Poland. The primary regulations include the Polish Food Safety and Nutrition Act, which prohibits suggesting that a balanced diet cannot provide sufficient nutrients; the Regulation of the Minister of Health of 9 October 2007, which sets detailed rules for labeling supplements; and two key EU regulations – Regulation 1169/2011 on consumer information about food and Regulation 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims – both of which set the framework for what can be communicated in advertising.
The rapid growth of this market encourages unfair practices, with entrepreneurs often presenting supplements as having medicinal properties. National authorities continue to counteract these practices by imposing financial penalties for such misleading claims.
The provincial sanitary inspector may impose a financial penalty if the labeling, advertising, or presentation of a dietary supplement infringes national regulations or Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011. The penalty may be up to 30 times the average salary (currently, that would be approximately PLN 245,000 / EUR 58,800).
Advertising dietary supplements by attributing medicinal properties to them may also have severe consequences, as it constitutes a violation of the collective interests of consumers within the meaning of the Competition and Consumer Protection Act. In such instances, the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (President of the UOKiK) may impose a financial penalty on the entrepreneur of up to 10% of the turnover achieved in the financial year preceding the year in which the decision was issued.
In recent years, the President of UOKiK closely examined advertising practices in the dietary supplement market, which led to numerous decisions being issued, with the most interesting ones listed below.
In the commitment Decision No. RBG-1/2017 of February 23, 2017, the President of the UOKiK initiated proceedings for misleading advertisements of a magnesium dietary supplement. The adverts claimed the product was “the most frequently recommended magnesium preparation by pharmacists in Poland” without providing evidence and featured a person playing a pharmacist recommending only this product, creating associations with medicines. The President of UOKiK accepted the commitment proposed by the company to broadcast corrective messages on radio stations and publish the decision on its websites.
In Decision No. DOIK-5/2017 of October 12, 2017, the President of the UOKiK imposed a total fine of approximately PLN 25.8 million (approximately EUR 6.2 million) for broadcasting advertisements for the dietary supplements. The advertisements presented the products as having medicinal properties – the characters in the advertisement immediately experienced an improvement after consuming the product, and slogans such as “healthy sinuses for a long time” reinforced the impression that the product cured sinus problems. Consumer research conducted in the case confirmed that a significant proportion of consumers perceived the products as medicines and expected them to have therapeutic effects.
In the same year, on December 29, 2017, the President of UOKiK issued the commitment Decision No. RBG-10/2017, this time without imposing a financial penalty. Advertisements for the reviewed product suggested that children’s problems with concentration, hyperactivity, or stress were caused by magnesium deficiency and that the supplement could eliminate these difficulties. The advertisement featured a school teacher, which was found to lead viewers to believe that it was a professional recommendation, even though teachers are not qualified to advise on dietary supplements.
The President of UOKiK is also monitoring advertising on social media, as shown by Decision No. RBG-9/2023 of August 23, 2023. A company was found to have engaged in quasi-advertising by paying influencers to promote its products on Instagram without clearly disclosing the commercial nature of the posts. The President of UOKiK considered this a misleading market practice and imposed a financial penalty of approximately PLN 5.0 million (approximately EUR 1.2 million) on the company.
We anticipate that market authorities will continue their close scrutiny of the dietary supplements sector and will react to potential irregularities. However, this task will be far from easy, as many businesses in the industry operate exclusively online, making ef-fective monitoring and enforcement considerably more difficult.
By Pawel Halwa, Office Managing Partner, and Kacper Gabryjanczyk, Junior Associate, Schoenherr
This article was originally published in Issue 12.11 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.
