New Zealand’s hunt for export growth usually ends in a subsidy scheme, a trade mission or a new agency. The natural health sector is asking for something far cheaper. It wants the government to stop forcing products bound for foreign shelves to comply with domestic rules written before most of its customers were born.
Samantha Gray, government affairs director at Natural Health Products NZ (NHPNZ), told Newstalk ZB this week that exporters are still caught by an anomaly. Anything shipped offshore must meet New Zealand standards that are “circa 1985 and completely outdated“. The government is now proposing to ease export and labelling rules. The industry says that change unlocks the extra $500 million a year it has been pointing to for years.
A number that refuses to go away
That $500 million figure is not new. It featured in BusinessDesk’s reporting in 2024, when the industry called the labelling rules “absurd”, and again in Newsroom’s December 2024 coverage of the government prioritising the issue.
A Ministry of Health briefing from August 2024 traced the figure to a 2019 NHPNZ estimate. Members contributed $2.3 billion to the economy, 75% of them exported, and combined export revenue topped $600 million. The same briefing recorded 64% sector growth over five years and a global natural health market Euromonitor valued at US$233 billion in 2022.
The age of that estimate is itself the story. A 2019 number is still being quoted in 2026 because the fix it depends on still has not fully landed.
A dead law holding up a live industry
The root problem is almost comic. The Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985 hung off the Food Act 1981, which was repealed long ago. In September 2025 the government said it would use the Therapeutic Products Act Repeal Bill to move the regulations onto the Food Act 2014, opening the door to export-specific exemptions.
Andrew Hoggard, then food safety minister, said at the time that exporters were “competing with other countries’ products with one hand tied behind their backs“, and that some supplements could not be exported to certain countries at all despite meeting internationally recognised standards. Todd McClay tied the change to the government’s goal of doubling export value within 10 years.
A broader rule change from 25 September 2025 also meant most food and supplements packaged for export no longer needed individual exemptions. The cost of the old regime was concrete. Radix Nutrition’s Leighton Cosgrave told The Post in 2025 his company had avoided direct US exports of whey protein because it would have needed four extra MPI inspections a year. The identical product could go from Australia to the US without the hassle. The change was expected to save the firm “tens of thousands” in compliance costs.
The easy wins landed first
The valuable part has been slower. In 2025 Gray welcomed the reforms but flagged dietary supplements as “the next priority”, saying action there would open growth particularly in the Middle East and Asia.
Officials were more cautious. A May 2025 briefing shows NHPNZ sought blanket exemptions from labelling, composition and therapeutic claims rules, but the Ministry of Health and MPI did not support blanket exemptions, citing regulatory integrity and trade reputation. By November 2025, a follow-up briefing recorded industry frustration that the initial regime “will not result in significant change“. The health claims and composition-limit exemptions exporters most wanted were left for later.
That caution is not unreasonable. New Zealand’s food safety reputation is a commercial asset and nobody should want it traded away. But letting a product that meets the importing country’s rules be sold in that country is not a race to the bottom. It is what Australian competitors already enjoy.
Why this belongs at the front of the queue
For a government that says it wants exports doubled, this is about as good as reform gets. There is no fiscal cost, no new bureaucracy and no picking winners. Ministers across trade, food safety and health have agreed on the direction since at least 2024. The sector is export-heavy, fast-growing and already selling into the markets the government says it is prioritising.
What it needs is officials and ministers to finish the job on health claims and composition limits, the part that actually carries most of the $500 million. Gray called the process “a long, long journey“, and the industry says it is delighted the next changes are on the table. The test now is whether “possible changes” become enacted ones before another year of export revenue goes to competitors across the Tasman.
Sources
- Newstalk ZB: “A long, long journey”: Supplement exporters ‘delighted’ with possible changes to out of date regulations (2026-09-25)
- Infonews: Natural health sector welcomes commitment to unlock dietary supplement exports (2025-09-04)
- Beehive: Modernising dietary supplement regulations (2025-09-04)
- BusinessDesk: Export opportunities stifled by ‘absurd’ labelling rules, says natural health industry (2024-08-09)
- The Post: Rule change clears costly hurdle for Kiwi food, supplement exporters (2025-09-03)
- Newsroom: Govt prioritises new rules for dietary supplement exports (2024-12-12)
- Ministry of Health: Briefing – Meeting with Natural Health Products NZ (2024-08)
- Ministry of Health: Briefing – Evaluating regulatory pathways to enable dietary supplement exports (2025-05-16)
- Ministry of Health: Briefing – Update on the impacts of changes to the regulation of dietary supplements (2025-11)
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