“Novel food” sounds like marketing language. It is not. It is a defined legal category in the
Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code, and understanding it explains the whole malunggay
situation in about four minutes.
A novel food is a **non-traditional food** that requires assessment before it can enter the food
supply, because it does not have an established history of safe human consumption **in Australia
or New Zealand**. That geographic qualifier is the crux of the thing. A food can be eaten daily
by millions of people somewhere else for centuries and still be novel here, because the test is
about the local record, not the global one.
The relevant rules sit in **Standards 1.1.1 and 1.5.1** of the Code. A novel food cannot be sold,
or used as an ingredient in something sold, unless it is listed in the schedule of permitted
novel foods. That list is short. There are only around fourteen entries on it. Anyone wanting to
add something has to apply to FSANZ to amend the Code.
The **Advisory Committee on Novel Foods** gives views on whether a given food is novel, and
publishes them, though those views are guidance rather than law and the committee says so itself.
Enforcement is a separate matter again. **FSANZ writes the standards, it does not police them.**
State and territory authorities do that, which is why you see inconsistent outcomes between
shops and between states.
For malunggay specifically: an application covering moringa leaf, immature pods and seed oil
went in and was assessed. **It was not approved in November 2025.** Then in **March 2026** the
Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry issued import notice **IFN 05-26**, so
shipments arriving declared as food are held at the border.
Two things follow that people get wrong. First, this is not a safety ruling about the plant, it
is a finding that the evidence put forward did not establish what the standard requires. Second,
it is reversible. A fresh application with a better dossier is the mechanism, and the permitted
list does get amended over time.
Propel Health, an Australian supplier, stopped selling rather than work around the position, and
published the detail on their
malunggay powder page
including a notification list for anyone who wants to know if it changes. Which, given the
process above, is the only honest thing anyone can offer right now.