80% of Vietnamese take Dietary Supplement – An Opportunity for Manufacturer & Distributor

February 19, 2024

80% of Vietnamese people use dietary supplements

Vietnamese people prefer dietary supplements coming from Japan, Korea and European countries. Domestic dietary supplements have dominated the market (accounting for about 60-80%). The proportion of people using health supplements and nutritional foods has increased to 58.5% of the population over 18 years old.

In recent years, consumers have not found it difficult to buy genuine dietary supplements distributed at pharmacies, supermarkets, e-commerce platforms, etc. Especially, for women and the elderly, this industry is considered potential and is appearing more and more on shelves. This is also considered a product that increases profits, creating a separate direction for traditional pharmacies to compete with retail drug chains on the market.

According to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Dang, former Director of the Food Safety and Hygiene Department (Ministry of Health) and chairman of the Vietnam Functional Food Association, the survey results showed that up to 92% of the population know about functional foods and 80% of people are using functional foods and health products. This is a golden opportunity for domestic and foreign manufacturers and distributors to develop their business opportunities in the functional food segment.

According to pharmacist Nguyen Xuan Hoang, Vice President of the Vietnam Functional Food Association, Vietnam’s greatest strength is medicinal herbs and bioactive substances in health supplements.

“If functional foods and health supplements abroad are pure vitamins, minerals or only for treatment, these products in Vietnam have a combination of vitamins, minerals, bioactive substances, and herbs,” said Mr. Hoang.

According to Mr. Hoang, in recent years, the rate of access of Vietnamese people to health supplements has reached 80%. If the industrial sector currently imports up to 99% of raw materials, Vietnam only processes and packages, health supplements currently only import 40% of raw materials. That shows that we have been proactive in terms of raw materials.

Challenges in expanding the dietary supplement market

Currently, there are hundreds of enterprises in the country producing dietary supplements, providing the market with about 12,000 products. However, people are still confused about dietary supplements due to the rampant counterfeit and fake products on the market.

To put an end to the situation of counterfeit labels and counterfeit production technologies of reputable products, the Ministry of Health is currently soliciting comments on a draft regulation on the limits of contaminants in health supplements. Soon. The Ministry of Health may set regulations on quality standards for contaminants, sampling, testing methods, product registration and declaration, etc. for health protection products similar to medicinal products.

In the coming time, the Functional Food Association will coordinate with the Department of Food Safety (Ministry of Health) to have a policy of rewarding enterprises with good manufacturing practices, and have measures to handle and deter if enterprises are poor and violate so that consumers can trust the functional food products that are put on the market.

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