In South Korea, “dietary supplement” is referred to as "Health Functional Food (HFF)." As stated in Health Functional Foods Act, the HFF means foods manufactured with functional raw materials or ingredients beneficial to human health. The ingredient compliance is on the front burner for manufacturing the HFF products. 

The ingredients applicable to HFF include "noticed ingredients" and "individually recognized ingredients." The "noticed ingredients" are the proper raw materials or ingredients published by the Minister of Food and Drug Safety. If the ingredients are noticed, the enterprises can manufacture HFF products directly. Otherwise, a pre-evaluation would be requested. Up to now, MFDS has released twenty-eight nutritional ingredients and sixty-eight functional raw materials. This guideline will help enterprise to check the ingredients prior to manufacturing. A list of prohibited materials is added as well.