The Legal Aspects of Functional Foods in the Context of the Development of the Food Market in Poland

Scientific research on functional foods has been conducted in Poland only by scientists specializing in food and nutrition, economics, biology and medicine. Therefore there is a real market demand for research on the legal aspects of functional foods. The aim of this article is to critically analyse current legal regulations that may apply to functional foods; the author assumes that they do not support the development of the market in functional foods, including consumer awareness of the health properties of food products. For this purpose, the paper presents the history of functional foods, its non-legal definitions and types. It is also necessary to define a catalogue of legal acts and soft law documents that may apply to functional foods, and to locate this type of food in the terminology of legal language. The author concludes that the lack of a concept of functional foods in legislation and overly complicated and strict regulations in the field of nutritional and health claims are not conducive to the development of the market in functional foods.