Documentation

Chief Sanitary Inspectorate — hereinafter referred to as GIS [in Polish: Główny Inspektorat Sanitarny], which is the central government administration office maintaining the “Register of Products Covered by the Notification of the Placing on the Market or Intention to Place a Food Product for the First Time” — referred to henceforth as the Register.

Smart Supplement Monitor Report — hereinafter referred to as the Report — it is based on the data from the “Register of Products Covered by the Notification of the Placing the Market or Intention to Place a Food Product for the First Time” available at GIS, henceforth referred to as the data Source.

Last Data Update — the day of the last data import from page.

The Report has been designed to accelerate and facilitate work associated with data analysis available in the Register, drawing strategic and tactical conclusions and providing synthesized knowledge about the intentions of entities to introduce dietary supplements and fortified and functional foods onto the market.

The Report is an analytical product, supporting the standard actions of entities involved in market monitoring related to supplements.

The Source includes data from:

• entities submitting the product by introducing it into the Register through an electronic notification form including the following data: “product name,” “product form,” “proposed qualification,” “qualitative composition,” “name of the notifying entity”;
• data regarding the procedure introduced by GIS, namely “information on procedure” and “remarks”.

The Report contains data from January 2020 o the date of the Last Data Update.

The batch for the report consists of data imported according to the status in the Register as of the day of the Last Data Update of the Report. This means that there is a retroactive data update if such changes have been noted in the Source.

The registering parties use different wording to describe the same ingredient and thus a standardization was performed in the Report.

Ingredient names from the Smart Supplement dictionary begin with a lowercase letter, except for ingredient names in which the convention strictly requires the specific character sizes. Such examples are plant names.

The Report is not used to verify the correctness of data in the submitted notification nor to update the original data contained in the Source.

Moreover, the presented data is in no way related to GIS’s powers concerning supervision over the Register. It should also be mentioned that GIS’s position on the following matters is as follows:

• complete liability for the product covered by the notification and indicated in the Register lies with the entity operating on the food market submitting such notification,
• supervision over the entrepreneur operating on the food market is exercised by the competent State District Sanitary Inspector or State Border Sanitary Inspector,
• The Chief Sanitary Inspector monitors notifications in terms of the adequacy of the composition declared in the notification and the presented documentation for the qualification proposed by the entity operating on the food market — in accordance with Art. 30 of the Act on Safety of Food and Nutrition,
• At any time, if non-compliance with legal regulations is found against the entity introducing the product onto the market, appropriate proceedings can be initiated and such Register entries can be updated,
• The Chief Sanitary Inspector does not verify the quality of products reported to the Register nor authorizes their presence on the market.

In the Report, the following values from the fields directly originating from the Source are used:

• product name,
• product form,
• proposed qualification,
• qualitative composition,
• notifying entity,
• information on procedure,
• remarks,
• notification date.

Raw data have been cleaned and transformed in such a way so as to facilitate analysis. In particular:

• categorizing of decomposed product compositions, with particular emphasis on the category of Smart Supplement ingredients, going beyond the standard GIS approach based on vitamins, mineral components, plant ingredients and other components. Such categorizing takes place at the level of the main component, which does not include chemical form names, bacterial strains or isomers. The detailed categorizing includes all forms, as long as the manufacturer provides them. This functionality will be available in September 2023. Currently, the verification work is underway.
• the introduction of the “unclassified” category – these are ingredients which cannot be categorized in a manner consistent with the adopted rules.
• categorizing of product forms to facilitate drawing conclusions at a specific level of generality, e.g., entries containing the word “sachets” have been standardized to the superior form “sachets”:

 

The original form of the product	Product form group – Polish	Product form – English	Product form group – English	Product form – Polish
Kapsułki i saszetki	Gotowe Oraz Mogące Wymagać Przygotowania Przed Spożyciem	capsules and sachets	ready to use and may require preparation before taking	Kapsułki i Saszetki
Saszetki	Wymagające Przygotowania Przed Spożyciem	sachet	requiring preparation before eating	Saszetka
Saszetki z Proszkiem	Wymagające Przygotowania Przed Spożyciem	sachet	requiring preparation before eating	Saszetka
Saszetki z Proszkiem Do Sporządzenia Zawiesiny Doustnej	Wymagające Przygotowania Przed Spożyciem	sachet	requiring preparation before eating	Saszetka
Saszetki z Proszkiem, Kapsułki Miękkie	Gotowe Oraz Mogące Wymagać Przygotowania Przed Spożyciem	capsules and sachets	ready to use and may require preparation before taking	Kapsułki i Saszetki
Saszetki z Proszkiem, Kapsułki Miękkie, Kapsułki Twarde	Gotowe Oraz Mogące Wymagać Przygotowania Przed Spożyciem	capsules and sachets	ready to use and may require preparation before taking	Kapsułki i Saszetki
Saszetki z Proszkiem, Kapsułki Miękkie, Kapsułki Twarde, Kapsułki Twarde	Gotowe Oraz Mogące Wymagać Przygotowania Przed Spożyciem	capsules and sachets	ready to use and may require preparation before taking	Kapsułki i Saszetki
Saszetki z Proszkiem, Kapsułki Twarde, Kapsułki Miękkie, Kapsułki Twarde, Kapsułki Twarde	Gotowe Oraz Mogące Wymagać Przygotowania Przed Spożyciem	capsules and sachets	ready to use and may require preparation before taking	Kapsułki i Saszetki

 

For clarity, especially in graphs, names of notifying entities have been abbreviated. The definitions of abbreviations are as follows:

• spółka jawna – sp. j. [General Partnership] j.
• spółka partnerska – sp.p. [Professional Partnership]
• spółka komandytowa – sp.k. [Limited Partnership]
• spółka komandytowo-akcyjna – S.K.A. [Limited Joint-stock Partnership]
• spółka z ograniczoną odpowiedzialnością – spółka z o.o. [Limited Liability Company]
• prosta spółka akcyjna – P.S.A. [Simple Joint-stock Company]
• spółka akcyjna – S.A. [Joint-stock Company]
• spółka cywilna – s.c. [Civil Law Partnership]
• Przedsiębiorstwo Handlowo-Usługowe – P.H.U. [Trade and Service Company]
• Przedsiębiorstwo Handlowo-Produkcyjno-Usługowe – P.H.P.U. [Trade, Production, and Service Company]
• Przedsiębiorstwo Produkcyjno-Handlowe – P.Pro.H. [Production and Trade Company]
• Przedsiębiorstwo Przemysłowo Handlowe – P.Prz.H. [Industrial and Trade Company]
• Firma Handlowo-Usługowa – F.H.U. [Trade and Service Firm]

Ingredient – a basic unit which identifies the ingredient responsible for a specific physiological effect. The main ingredient does not include chemical forms, salts, isomers or bacterial strains. In the Qlik Sense filtering logic, selecting one ingredient causes narrowing down the composition to only the selected ingredient. The classic approach to filtering is recommended and useful in the trend analysis section.

Ingredient category – the Smart Supplement approach takes into account the traditional division into vitamins, minerals, probiotics, plants and plant-derived ingredients. In addition, there have been introduced in the category items which take into account the division of ingredients into proteins and enzymes, lipids and derivatives, prebiotics, animal-derived ingredients and others. Due to this, it is possible to determine the ingredient profile of a given product.

Notification – for the purposes of the Report, the notification is defined as the unique product name and product form in the given period time.

Manufacturer – the submitting entity.

Status information – information about the procedure.

Product form – e.g.: a capsule, a tablet.

Product category – a product registration status.

Selected dimension – a field by which different measures are aggregated, e.g., ingredient categories, ingredients, a product form.

Total – dimensions without any aggregation.

Time unit – a period by which measures are aggregated, enabling observation of the development tendency over time for selected measures.

PPG% (previous period growth) – the percentage of growth compared to the previous period. Due to the specificity of the analyzed data, it has been assumed that it is useful for business to compare the values in relation to the period of the previous year.

YoY (year over year) – year over year.

Occurrence of ingredients in the submitted products – indicates how often products with a specific ingredient are introduced to the market. The higher the number of introduced preparations and the greater the number of entities reporting a new product in a given period, the more popular the ingredient is.

Products with an ingredient – a filtering method which enables the user to select products containing a selected ingredient without narrowing down the composition of preparations to this ingredient.

Product review – a functionality which allows for the decomposition of product compositions and for comparing them with each other in terms of ingredient categories and individual ingredients. In this case, it is recommended to use the filter type “products with an ingredient”.

Ingredient pattern – a recurring composition of ingredients. The assessment of the frequency of occurrence of specific patterns can be carried out, among other methods, by means of basket analysis.

The probability vector of the ingredients incidence –while using “select products with the ingredient” filter type one may receive many product compositions, where it is difficult to draw significant conclusions at first glance. In order to assess the incidence number of individual ingredients the probability vector has been introduced in the main view.

Synergism – a relationship between the ingredients of preparations which improves supplementation effects. The relationship may be mutual or one-sided (the predecessor i.e., which has an impact, improves the action of the successor.

Antagonism – a relationship between the ingredients of preparations which excludes or weakens supplementation effects. The relationship may be mutual or one-sided (a predecessor, i.e., an ingredient that has an impact, weakens or excludes the action of the successor).

Health purpose – a description of the use of the ingredients in dietary supplements that has a nutritional or physiological effect. In the Report health purposes for selected ingredients have been developed on the basis of Natural Medicines website, Examine.com and on the basis of pharmaceutical vademecum “Dietary Supplements ingredients. Efficacy, safety and preparations review” (Wydawnictwo farmaceutyczne, 2021).

Ingredients health purpose – a list of ingredients that includes certain health purposes.

Basket analysis – a data exploration technique used in the Report to identify the strength of links (associations) between ingredients, extracting co-occurrence rules. The classic application of the method includes optimizing sales by finding the combinations of products which are often bought together. In the case of the report, the results of such analysis accelerate the exploration of a selected product category, finding common and unique ingredient rules. This functionality is particularly addressed to R&D departments seeking inspirations for improving products, brand development, and creating entirely new preparations. Brand managers, constantly monitoring the market, are able to find interesting promotional arguments for the products which they care for daily. Due to the use of appropriate measures, reviewing dozens of compositions simultaneously quickly converges to expected conclusions, without the need for spending hours on the manual decomposition of product compositions and describing the frequency of ingredient occurrence. What’s more, due to the exceptional importance of optimizing pharmacotherapy, including the elaborate care in creating the compositions of ingredients and the application of synergism and antagonism relations, the Basket Analysis supports the improvement of the process of selecting the composition of ingredients, and thus may increase the chances of obtaining consumer satisfaction in connection with the effects of using the preparation. This approach is particularly important from the perspective of pharmacists, who analyze product leaflets daily, wanting to recommend the best products to patients.

Clusterization of products – a method of grouping products into sets within which there are products with similar compositions. Similarity is measured using the L1 distance.

Outliers – this term refers to products that have not been assigned to any of the clusters because there were not enough similar products found for them. All outlier observations are grouped into an auxiliary cluster called “Others”.

Cluster core – a set of ingredients that are present in each product within a cluster. The core is therefore the common part of the compositions of products within a cluster.

Latest Notifications – a quick and concise overview of the notifications from the last 7 and 90 days. In this section, one can almost instantly learn about the most popular ingredients, the most active players, smoothly going to the details contained in the subsequent sections as needed.

Trend Analysis – a cross-sectional look at the development tendency regarding the notifications of supplementary products. Thanks to the access to various dimensions, one can quickly build intuition regarding current trends in ingredient popularity, competitor’s activity, and observe new market players. Although a notification of intent to market isn’t equivalent to the product’s availability for sale, this is where one can foresee a market-shaping function used for dietary supplements.

Composition Analysis – an organized and quantified way of looking at product patterns, providing a clear and lucid image of the market’s direction when submitting notification of new products. This is also a source of inspiration for ingredient compositions. The compilations in this section allow – with the application of the previously used filters – the observation of generalized ingredient patterns in submitted registrations. For this purpose, the measures of frequency for ingredients and manufacturers are used, as well as the decomposition of product compositions in the ingredient category and at the ingredient levels.

Advanced Composition Analysis – is based on:

• A traditional basket analysis for individual ingredients – a deep insight into the occurrence of ingredient rules, also taking into account their synergies, antagonisms, and the aspect of documented clinical efficacy in research. Functionality available from the end of September, 2023.
• Product ingredient clustering which identifies groups with similar characteristics – the results of clustering can be extremely helpful
  in product positioning strategies, among other things, due to the use of appropriate metrics in the grouping process speeds up and enhances the efficiency of analyzing multiple compositions simultaneously. They can quickly identify common or innovative compositions. Furthermore, the entire analysis supports the inspiration process, providing product development ideas and the effective evaluation of solutions used by other entities. The functionality is currently available in test mode. Full analysis will be available from the beginning of October, 2023.

Dimensions available globally:

• total
• ingredient category
• ingredient
• manufacturer
• product name
• product form
• product category
• comments
• day
• week
• month
• quarter
• year.

Dimensions available in the “advanced composition analysis” section:

• health purpose
• ingredient health purposes
• cluster.

Measures available in the “latest notifications” section:

ingredients (last 7 days) – the number of unique product notifications with an ingredient, considering the 15 most popular ingredients in the given period,

manufactures (last 7 days) – manufacturers who have submitted a notification for the biggest amount of products in the specified period,

products (last 7 days) – the number of unique products in the in the specified period,

manufactures (last 90 days) – manufacturers who have submitted a notification for the biggest amount of products in the specified period,

products (last 90 days) – the number of unique products in the specified period.

 

Measures available in the “registration trends” and “product composition analysis” sections:

average number of products per manufacturer – the average number of products submitted by entities which have submitted a notification in the chosen period,

average number of ingredients per product – the average number of unique ingredients depending on the chosen filters. It may relate to a chosen period, manufacturer, etc.

average ingredients per product – the average number of ingredients for the chosen group of products,

distinct product forms – the number of unique product forms,

distinct manufactures – the number of unique entities which have submitted a notification,

distinct ingredients – the number of unique ingredients,

ingredient incidence – the percentage of products containing a specific ingredient in the total set of analyzed products.

 

Measures and concepts used in the “advanced products composition analysis” section:

l1 measure – used in the product grouping process, i.e., in the process of identifying product clusters with similar ingredient patterns. The use of probabilistic weights (in other words, determining the frequency of an ingredient in a given cluster) captures frequently occurring patterns in product compositions,

entropic measure – used in the product grouping process. Using the inverse of probability in weights (equivalently, a minus before the sum) makes this measure be sensitive to the occurrence of ingredients with low probability, capturing non-standard ingredients in product compositions,

support – refers to how often a particular rule appears in the explored database. The maximum value does not exceed 100%,

confidence – refers to how many times a given rule turns out to be true in practice. The maximum value does not exceed 100%,

lift – refers to the probability of, for example, iron and vitamin C appearing together in the composition. Values above 1 indicate that the coexistence of, for example, two ingredients is highly more probable than each one appearing separately. Values below 1 indicate a higher probability of ingredients occurring separately, and a value of exactly 1 indicates a lack of such association,

number of cluster cores – the number of cores in which a specific ingredient appears.