Monitor: Supplement ingredient trends we saw at SupplySide West
SupplySide West provides a glimpse of innovation at the ingredient level that drives trends in finished products. See what we found at the Las Vegas event.
November 2, 2023
Every tradeshow is a blizzard of distraction by design, with hundreds of booths programmed to grab eyes and hold them there, but even in the onslaught of overstimulation that was last week’s SupplySide West, some themes stood out.
Here is a little of what we saw:
Non-alcoholic adult beverages did not have the row of booths that the emerging category claimed at Natural Products Expo East but ingredient companies are clearly lining up behind the phenomenon. Many of the leading beverage brands in the space are adding branded ingredients like Suntheanine and Sensoril to their concoctions, tasking the companies to deliver the ingredient in a form that meets the demands of a taste-forward product experience.
Women’s health is the trend that insiders have been talking about for the past year, with a portfolio of benefits expanding beyond menopause into libido and other conditions. That trend was on obvious display at booth after booth, with gut health increasingly claiming a role in the offerings.
Berberine is making the TikTok rounds as “nature’s Ozempic” and though no company on the SupplySide floor was careless enough to use that term, plenty of companies showcased an ingredient that few people were even talking about a year ago. Specnova’s time-release berberine could be a winner for a ingredient that otherwise tasks users to dose as often as three times a day to see benefits.
Mushrooms were conspicuous mainly in their absence. It’s a fast-growing category that blossomed out of the pandemic on tailwinds fanned by immunity, but interest has since expanded to include cognition, mood and sleep. You might not have noticed that exploding interest from the show floor, however: The expected parade of branded mushroom ingredients has yet to appear.
The healthy brain category isn’t waiting on mushrooms. Booth after booth showcased ingredients designed to boost cognition. That fits well with growing interest and innovation around healthy aging, which also was widely promoted on the show floor. Nutrition Business Journal research tells us, though, that younger consumers are actively looking to boost their cognitive performance—and they’re buying products to help them do it.
Liposomes are nothing new, but the level and frequency that liposome are being highlighted is on the uptick. Companies were promoting liposomes and other methods designed to boost bioavailability, a concept that’s also been around for many years but seemed to be highlighted in even bolder type at the show.
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