Functional foods are foods positioned in the market place for particular and identified physiological or health reasons. They may be traditional foods with newly defined significance or altogether newly formulated foods whose ingredients may be novel or whose formulation may be novel. Functional foods may also be ones used to prevent or manage disease, but here they may compete with pharmaceutical products, only to be distinguished by source of active component and the form in which they are ingested, namely one recognised and/or sold as food or medicine. A list of nine health categories, in which new foods requiring risk analysis may be developed, is presented in the article.