Large sections of the British health food industry insist hundreds of established food supplements in thousands of products will be swept from the shelves by the EU rules which come into force in August.

But the Government's Food Safety Agency, now vetting hundreds of familiar products under rules requiring them to qualify anew for inclusion on an EU approved list of nutrients, says consumers will see virtually no change from the start of next month.

In reality, the new EU procedures for verifying the safety of vitamin supplements and minerals will take years to complete -- up to 2009 in some cases.

And officials expect that the vast bulk of supplements in daily use will qualify routinely to be kept in the shops. Campaigners against the rules had argued that they were unnecessary and costly for the manufacturers to comply with.

One European judge, an Advocate-General delivering an "opinion" in April, even agreed that the so-called Food Supplements Directive, although a good idea in theory, was not clear enough and should be withdrawn.

That gave hope to the campaigners who launched the legal challenge -- until yesterday the final verdict decreed that the Directive was fully justified.

The judges warned the European Commission to ensure that the procedures for vetting food supplements are clear and open, and give health food manufacturers every opportunity to make the "positive list" with their products -- and with legal redress available if they fail.

Conservative Euro MP John Bowis claimed health food tablets containing nutrients such as selenium yeast and boron will have to go, even though they have been approved under domestic food safety laws