Can I add vitamins to a food in Australia? What the Code actually permits

You want to add a vitamin to a food: vitamin C to a juice, iron to a cereal, vitamin D to a spread. Can you, in Australia? Yes, but only where the Food Standards Code expressly permits it, and only in the forms and amounts it sets. This guide reads what the Code actually permits, in the order it permits it, and shows how Regulave's free Food or Medicine Checker reads the same rules for your own product.

The starting point: any food, but not any addition

The Code is generous about what a food may be. Standard 1.1.1 says "food for sale may consist of, or have as an ingredient, any food" (section 1.1.1—10(2)). A food does not need a standard of its own.

It is strict about what you add. Unless the Code expressly permits it, food for sale must not contain a substance that was used as a nutritive substance (section 1.1.1—10(6)(b)), and a vitamin or mineral added to a food is exactly that. So the question is never whether you may sell a food with vitamins in general. It is always: does the Code permit this vitamin, in this form, in this kind of food?

Where the permission lives

For everyday foods, the permission is Standard 1.3.2 – Vitamins and minerals, read with Schedule 17. Section 1.3.2—3 says a vitamin or mineral may be used as a nutritive substance in a food if three things hold:

1. "the vitamin or mineral is in a permitted form specified in section S17—2 or section S17—3";
2. "the vitamin or mineral is listed in relation to that type of food in section S17—4";
3. the total amount in a reference quantity of the food, naturally occurring and added together, is no more than the maximum the table sets for it, if it sets one.

For special purpose foods, such as sports foods and formulated supplementary foods, the permission lives in their own standards and in Schedule 29 instead. The sports food case has its own guide: Sports food or supplement? Standard 2.9.4 in plain words.

Condition one: a permitted form

Schedule 17 lists the forms each vitamin and mineral may be added in. Ascorbic acid, for example, is a permitted form of vitamin C, and colecalciferol is a permitted form of vitamin D.

The checker reads each ingredient you name against those lists. Name a form, and it tells you which vitamin it is and the row that permits the form. Name the vitamin itself, «vitamin A» for instance, and it tells you to add it in a permitted form, and lists the forms Schedule 17 allows.

Condition two: your kind of food must be listed

This is the condition most products meet or miss. The table to section S17—4 is a list of kinds of food, and for each one, the vitamins and minerals that may be added to it. Measured from the table itself, it lists 28 foods in nine groups:

• cereals and cereal products (such as bread, breakfast cereals, cereal flours and pasta);
• dairy products (such as dried milks, cheese, yoghurts and butter);
• edible oils and spreads;
• extracts of meat, vegetables or yeast;
• fruit juice, vegetable juice, fruit drink and fruit cordial;
• analogues derived from legumes;
• composite products (soups);
• analogues derived from cereals, nuts, seeds, or a combination of those ingredients;
• formulated beverages.

Each row names its vitamins and minerals, and they differ from food to food. The row for bread lists thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6, vitamin E, folate, iron, magnesium and zinc. It does not list vitamin C. If your product's kind of food is not in the table, or its row does not list your vitamin, the general permission does not reach it.

Condition three: the amounts

Each row carries its own columns: Maximum claim per reference quantity and, for some vitamins, Maximum permitted amount per reference quantity. The reference quantity is set for each food; for breakfast cereals, for instance, it is a normal serving.

The claim column matters on the label. Under section 1.3.2—4, where a vitamin or mineral has been added to a food listed in S17—4, you may not claim more of it, as a percentage of the recommended dietary intake (RDI), than the table's maximum claim for that vitamin in that food.

Some foods carry extra conditions of their own. Vitamin D, for example, may be added to a breakfast cereal only if the cereal as purchased meets the nutrient profiling scoring criterion (section 1.3.2—6).

Two invented products, read by the checker

Morrowfield Oat Flakes — a breakfast cereal made from oats, with added thiamin. The checker says: your product can be sold as a food — no AUST L listing needed. A food standard covers it (Standard 2.1.1 – Cereal and cereal products), and Standard 1.3.2 permits the thiamin in «Breakfast cereals, as purchased» (Schedule 17, S17—4). Because thiamin was named as the vitamin itself, the checker also lists its permitted forms, such as thiamin hydrochloride and thiamin mononitrate.

Crumbfield Everyday Loaf — a bread made from wheat flour and water, with added vitamin C. The Code's row for bread does not list vitamin C, and no special purpose food permission reaches it either, so the checker says vitamin C can't be added to a food like this as described. Its overall answer is that the loaf will likely need AUST L listing as described, and it names the way back: make it without the vitamin C, or fit a kind of food the Code permits it in. For a loaf, the first is the obvious fix.

When your product could be more than one thing

Some products sit near the edge of a special purpose food. If you add vitamins that a special purpose food's table lists, the checker asks the standard's purpose question in its own words, because the answer changes which table applies.

If you answer yes to two classes, it asks which one your product is sold as. One of the answers it offers is: «Neither — it is sold as a general food». Choose that, and the checker reads the general table above and completes on what it says:

• if your kind of food is listed and its row lists what you add, it reads food, with the row quoted;
• if not, it says the additions have no general-food permission, names them, and names both routes that follow: reformulate without them, or AUST L listing.

The short version

• A food needs no standard of its own; what you add needs the Code's permission.
• For everyday foods, the permission is Standard 1.3.2 and Schedule 17: a permitted form, a listed kind of food, and an amount within the table.
• For special purpose foods, it is their own standard and Schedule 29.
• If your product is not a kind of food the Code lists for that vitamin, the vitamin cannot be added as described.

If you are not sure whether your product is a food at all, start with Do I need AUST L listing for my supplement? The five-minute answer.

Check your own product

Your form, your kind of food and your amounts decide it. The Food or Medicine Checker asks for your product's name, form and ingredients, reads each addition against the tables above, and quotes the row it relied on.

Check your product with the Food or Medicine Checker →

---

This article is general information built from the legal instruments Regulave holds, current when it was written. It is not legal advice. The products named in it are invented for illustration. Before you sell, confirm your own product's position against the current instruments, or with a regulatory professional.