Posted by L Harris
on December 16, 2025
For thousands of years, mushrooms such as Turkey Tail and Cordyceps have held an important place in traditional wellness practice all around the world, from ancient Chinese and Japanese herbal systems to more recent traditions. These fungi have been valued not only as a modern ‘supplements’ but as functional foods, brewed into teas and consumed as a part of everyday diets. Well before the wellness trends their use was rooted in the cultures and passed down through generations, so making their sudden reclassification under a modern regulation feels completely unnecessary.
What is Turkey Tail?
The Turkey Tail Mushroom is one of those foods that reminds us how long we’ve actually been paying attention to nature. The fungi grow on fallen hardwood trees across Asia, Europe and North America and is instantly recognizable by its multiple layers and multicoloured ‘fans’, a shape that earned its name centuries ago. Long ago, Turkey Tail was brewed into simple teas and added to broths as a part of everyday food culture.
Traditionally, the fungi had been valued for its role within the wider, long-term relationship between diet and vitality. Generations consumed it, passing down that knowledge through lived experience rather than labels or clinical language.
Today, interest in Turkey Tail continues around the world because modern science is only just beginning to study what traditional cultures have known for centuries. Calling such a deep-rooted food ‘Novel’ says less about the mushroom and more about how disconnected modern systems are from not only history, but clear evidence.
What are Cordyceps?
Cordyceps mushrooms have been part of human food and cultural traditions for centuries, particularly across the high-altitude regions of Asia. Historically, Cordyceps was valued not as a novelty, but as a rare and respected natural food. It’s important to know that there are two distinct types of Cordyceps: Cordyceps Sinesis, which grows naturally in the wild, and Cordyceps Militaris, which is now widely cultivated in controlled environments. While their origins may differ, both have been widely recognized within ancient traditions, long before ‘Functional’ or ‘Novel’ foods ever existed.
Traditional Cultures consumed Cordyceps slowly and respectfully, often as parts of different soups and broths or infusions associated with supporting stamina, resilience and long-term vitality rather than quick fixes. Cordyceps Militaris, in particular made this accessible in the past without replying on scarce wild harvesting, allowing these practices to continue in a more sustainable way. Today’s interest in Cordyceps doesn’t come from trend-driven cultures but rather the growing body of academic research exploring the complex compounds and immense benefits found in these fungi. To label a mushroom with centuries of documented human use as “novel” is to overlook not only history, but the lived experience of the cultures that have relied on it for generations.
What is a ‘Novel Food’?
In simple terms, Novel Food law exists to regulate foods that were not commonly consumed before a certain cutoff date and therefore require additional safety assessment before being sold. In the UK (and originally the EU), that cutoff is 15 May 1997. If a food can’t demonstrate a “significant history of consumption” prior to that date, it may be classed as novel, regardless of whether it has been eaten elsewhere in the world for centuries. In the UK, it is the Food Standards Agency (FSA) that enforces this law, reviewing products, determining whether they qualify as novel, and ensuring that any foods sold without proper authorization are removed from the market.
Alongside the FSA sits the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which doesn’t regulate food but decides whether products should be classified as medicines, particularly in “borderline” cases where a supplement might be presented with therapeutic language or effects that make it seem medicinal rather than dietary. Herbal ingredients and food supplements can fall into this category, and the MHRA assesses them based on claims, presentation, and how the product is used or marketed.
The MHRA is funded partly by the UK government and partly by fees from the pharmaceutical and medical device companies it regulates, meaning it receives money both from public funding and the very industry it oversees. Because of this funding structure, there’s ongoing tension in how “foods” and “medicines” are defined in practice. Many herbal and supplement makers find themselves navigating both regimes: they must avoid making medical claims that could trigger MHRA oversight, and they must meet the FSA’s rigorous Novel Food requirements if an ingredient lacks documented historic use in the diet.
The Novel Food framework has effectively had two very different lives. When it was first introduced in 1997, it was designed to regulate genuinely new food technologies, like GM ingredients, novel additives, and industrial innovations, not traditional foods. Under this original system, many mushrooms, botanicals, and fermented foods remained on sale simply because they always had been, with enforcement varying widely. That changed with the second iteration in 2015, later adopted into UK law, which tightened the rules and reversed the burden of proof: instead of authorities needing to show a food was novel, businesses now had to prove it was not. If clear, documented evidence of widespread EU consumption before 1997 couldn’t be produced, regardless of centuries of use elsewhere, the food could be removed unless an expensive and time-consuming authorization was granted, pulling many traditional ingredients into a regulatory net they were never meant to be caught in.
In theory, businesses can apply for Novel Food authorization to keep selling an ingredient that has been classified as novel. In reality, this process is long, complex, and prohibitively expensive, especially for small and independent companies. An application can take several years to complete and requires extensive technical documentation, safety assessments, detailed breakdowns of the ingredient’s makeup, and legal expertise which in term will cost a lot of money to source. It’s a process designed for multinational corporations with regulatory teams and deep pockets, not for small producers working with traditional, whole-food ingredients. The cost alone is enough to make the route inaccessible. Preparing a Novel Food application can run into tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds, with no guarantee of approval at the end. During that time, products must remain off shelves, meaning businesses are expected to absorb years of lost income while funding an application they may never see a return on, it’s basically a dead end.
Turkey Tail and Cordyceps Ban?
Public awareness of the so-called “ban” really started to gain traction in the UK around October 2025. Now, in December 2025, the FSA has officially classified Turkey Tail and Cordyceps as Novel Foods across the entire UK, and petitions calling for a reversal are rapidly growing. This isn’t a minor issue affecting a single brand, it impacts every company selling these mushrooms in the UK.
What many people don’t realize is that this isn’t the first time these mushrooms have been forcibly removed from shelves. Earlier in 2025, companies such as Life Essentials were required to take Cordyceps Militaris and Turkey Tail capsules out of their range. For us, this meant switching to Cordyceps Sinensis, which is significantly more expensive to source and manufacture. Our 6-Mushroom Blend originally included Turkey Tail, so we had to replace it with Maitake and completely remove our Turkey Tail capsules. The result was a blend that no longer contained Turkey Tail, something our customers could still access elsewhere, which understandably led to reduced sales.
It’s also important to clear up a common misconception: this restriction isn’t limited to mushroom tinctures. Any product containing Turkey Tail or Cordyceps Militaris is now prohibited for sale in the UK, whether capsules, powders, or blended products. The impact is wide-reaching, and small businesses are being forced to adapt, often at considerable cost, simply because these long-used mushrooms do not meet the regulatory definition of a “Novel Food.”
