Raw materials—and the people who produce, export, import and distribute them—are foundational to the supplement industry. The supplement raw material and ingredient market is a $6.3 billion industry unto itself, with growth of 5.9% in 2018, just behind the 6% growth of the consumer supplement market. Growth trends on this side of the market tend to generally follow trends on the consumer end. For example, the herb and botanical category has posted the strongest growth on the raw material side since 2015, with growth of 10.4% in 2018. On the flip side, sports and meal supplement raw materials had the slowest growth in 2018 at 2.3%, down from a wild spike of 12.2% the previous year, because of fluctuations in whey protein pricing. Regardless of category, Nutrition Business Journal has also identified themes shaping the entire raw material industry, including transparency, quality and clean label.