Small health shop will feel the pinch

By BRIDGET CARTER

Leanne and Mike James have put their lives into their little health shop on the corner of Wairau Rd in Glenfield.

It has a regular stream of customers, many who have lost faith in conventional medicine. They also get requests for products from Australia, where many health products are unavailable.

Next year they had planned to hire more staff to cater for their growing number of customers.

But now, with the Government's industry regulations coming into force, they will make staff redundant, pull one-third of their products off the shelves and increase prices by up to 30 per cent.

"It is going to influence us so much," says Mrs James, who spent more than two years training to become a naturopath.

She says it will not so much be the "Mini end" of the health market that will be affected by the new rules, but the "Mercedes end".

The sort of vitamins people buy in the supermarket will be largely unaffected by the changes.

But things such as the concentrated forms of Vitamin C, which helps to absorb iron and prevents bruising, and selenium, which helps prevent glaucoma, will be available only with a prescription.

The couple believe that regulation requirements will cost companies more than $8000 a product and many overseas firms that make supplements will not bother selling their products in New Zealand any more.

There are about 10,000 practitioners of complementary and alternative health in New Zealand.

The health food and supplement industry has an annual retail turnover of $222 million and employs more than 3000 people.

Members of the public such as Allen Goldstone, who began buying health supplements after his mother died from cancer, are also concerned about the changes.

"It sucks," he says. "I have been buying supplements for about eight to nine years and they are very expensive.

"It will squeeze up prices and not all products will continue to be available because of the ... costs."