Supplement Associations Join Forces in Japan

WASHINGTON & TOKYO—Three dietary supplement-focused trade associations announced a collaboration to assist in the sharing of more regulatory and legislative information between officials in the United States and Japan. The Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), National Nutritional Foods Association of Japan (NNFA-J) and Natural Products Association (NPA) released a joint statement that they plan to share news about emerging regulations and legislation impacting health claims, food safety, food ingredients and dietary supplements, with a goal of helping both countries develop science-based approaches to overcoming challenges in their markets.

As a first step, a delegation of scientists and executives from the U.S. associations will travel to Tokyo this summer to meet with Japanese industry members and NNFA-J. The groups also plan to establish a working group or cooperation committee during the visit to Japan.

According to William Rahn, president of NNFA-J, the move was precipitated, in part, after government officials including members of the recently-formed bipartisan Health Supplement Committee expressed interest in meeting with U.S. counterparts to understand how the United States is addressing consumer health and food safety issues. “We welcome the opportunity to collaborate with CRN and NPA to facilitate this exchange of information as cooperation like this will certainly contribute to addressing issues surrounding the dietary supplement market in Japan,” Rahn added. “We are also planning to send a delegation from Japan to Washington later this year.”