ADVERTISING FOOD SUPPLEMENTS IN BULGARIA: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF REGULATORY FRAMEWORKS

Abstract

The regulatory framework of food supplements in the European Union follows synchronized rules and imperative guidance while it vastly differs in terms of the practicalities of the manner in which national regulations are structured and enforced. This paper aims to examine in detail the case of Bulgaria, where the rules on advertising food supplements are contained in the Regulation on Food Supplements, complementing the Foods Act of 2020. The recently updated national legislation refers to and implements relevant European Union acts, while introducing certain national criteria applicable to the advertising and labelling of food supplements. Unfortunately, such criteria appear quite inefficient as they have proven to be very limited in terms of their scope and practicability. Besides that, mechanisms established to ensure compliance with national regulations have failed to achieve the intended goals. Because evaluation methods vary significantly across departments of the Bulgarian Foods Safety Agency, inconsistencies have emerged in how national regulations concerned with food supplements advertising are interpreted and applied. As a result, the Bulgarian regulatory framework on the advertising of food supplements has fostered a disorderly environment, rather than one of compliance and consistency. In contrast, and while not perfect, the regulation of medicinal product advertising in Bulgaria has been found effective, easier to comply with, structured, clear and exhaustive enough to provide commercial entities choosing to advertise their medicinal products among end users and medical practitioners with coherent advertising guidance and clear boundaries. In practice, medicinal product advertising regulations ensure both compliance and predictability, clearly defining what is permissible, as well as the limits of the responsible national authority's competency. The key difference between the two systems lies in their enforcement. Food supplement regulations are legally established and compulsory yet rarely enforced by the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency. In contrast, medicinal products regulations require prior permission from the Bulgarian Drug Agency as a prerequisite for publishing any advertisement. The present case study conducts a comparative analysis of national regulatory frameworks in both fields. It argues there is a lack of legal certainty regarding the applicable rules, as well as a lack of clarity concerning the criteria used in assessing compliance of advertising materials for food supplements with national regulations. This article highlights the need to make these criteria and their applicability accessible to advertisers and the wider public, including consumers. It also argues that regulatory transparency in the field of food supplements would contribute significantly to ensuring compliance among commercial operators, reducing the volume of misleading advertising in the sector, and allowing competent national regulatory bodies to hold all violators accountable to the same standards.