The lifestyle-oriented consumer now makes up the largest portion of the overall performance nutrition pie, according to experts who have noted an evolution in a market that appeals to more than only elite athletes.

Top market shifts include making products more convenient and experiential. This means appealing product formats, sustainable packaging and ingredients, clean/free-from qualities communicated on-pack, trust through third-party certification, and other ways to eliminate commitment barriers among the everyday consumer.

Haleigh Resetar, corporate communications specialist at SPINS, noted key trends influencing a market positioned for a major rebound following the pandemic shake-up.

“The performance nutrition market is actively growing with a 40% increase in growth compared to this time last year,” she said. “During the pandemic, consumers were taking a closer look at their health, and their emphasis on immune support translated into the pursuit of overall health and wellness. More shoppers are working from home, eliminating commutes that they are replacing with trips to their local gym or home workouts.”

The popularity of plant-based alternatives will be a mainstay, Resetar said. “In addition to energy support and weight loss, shoppers are interested in active nutrition products that are multi-purpose, including the support of their mood. Some performance products have been focusing on joint health by the addition of collagen into their formulas.”

Steve Fink, vice president of marketing for PLT Health Solutions, said the active/sports nutrition category is “vibrant,” with more new product development discussions “and a significant uptick in new product launches in the last six months of 2021. We’re seeing more reformulations and launches of the traditional types of sports products like pre-workouts than we did a year ago, but we’re also seeing products targeting everyday active people … It might just grow differently than it has in the past, with products requiring differentiated features and benefits, better and more believable clinical sciences, and experiential or fast-acting results.”

High-Priority Applications
Oftentimes, the biggest hurdles consumers must overcome in their pursuit of more active lifestyles are related to mindset. Sleep and stress management are critical to maintaining a healthy diet and workout plan, for example. Nutrition products formulated to offer overlapping benefits to muscle, bone, and joint health and other everyday pain points like energy could speak to consumers who might be contending with other need states that affect their motivation.

“Active nutrition consumers are always looking for products that are quick, easy, and experiential,” said Elyse Lovett, vice president of marketing for Nutrition21. “Ingredients have to be versatile, with the ability to be incorporated in a variety of applications like powders, gummies and supplements, at clinically relevant doses. However, taste and texture will continue to be a determining factor when it comes to purchase.”

Joint issues are a key concern for consumers, especially for those ramping up their exercise routines for the first time, or after a prolonged break. At the same time, ongoing protection is just as important to those who’ve been in the game for many years. The exercising population is aging, and a growing number of people are working sedentary jobs, making mobility a key issue to tackle.

Jaqueline Rizo, digital engagement and communications specialist at Stratum Nutrition, said that the category once dominated by now-commodity ingredients like glucosamine and chondroitin is experiencing a renaissance of novel ingredients which boast low dosages and fast-acting efficacy.

“These ingredients serve an important function for those creating formulations, since the formulas can be more specialized and perhaps benefit multiple areas of bone and joint health,” Rizo said. “Some ingredients such as NEM (Natural Eggshell Membrane) display multiple benefits to joint health. NEM can provide significant reductions in pain and stiffness within seven to 10 days, both for individuals with discomfort and stiffness on a regular basis, and for those who need joint support when working through a new exercise regimen.”

The post-workout segment held a revenue share of over 35% of the sports nutrition market, according to Grand View Research. “The quick movements and long stretches that are integral to almost any athletic activity can result in injury to the ligaments, muscles, and tendons surrounding the joint,” said Rizo. “These constant onslaughts, even minor ones, can significantly affect endurance and increase recovery time. In addition, small injuries cause inflammation, which can impede activity and contribute to further injury if not resolved appropriately.”

Just like other systems in the body, she continued, “a weakness in one part can have ramifications throughout the entire system. It is normal to concentrate on one area of weakness in the body without considering how that weakness impacts other areas … Supplements that provide nutrients that support bones, joints, and even the surrounding tendons and ligaments, can help the body compensate for some weaknesses in one part of the system.”

For both the young athlete and the aging Boomer, “the ability to move about freely is vital to overall health,” Rizo added. “This ability to move can go a long way toward supporting the health of the rest of the body, both physically and mentally. Between the increasing age of the Baby Boomer generation, those living sedentary lifestyles, and the growing popularity of consumers seeking an active lifestyle, it’s never too late for consumers to care for their joints.”

Angie Rimel, North American marketing communications manager for Gelita, said that as consumers of all ages increase their focus on active lifestyles, “they are also realizing both overuse and increasing age make tendons, ligaments, and joints more injury prone and put bones at increased risk of stress fractures. So, it is no surprise that white tissue injuries today account for more than 70% of time away from exercise regimens, with personal, financial, and emotional consequences to the active person.”

Proper joint function is important for preventing stress fractures as well, which account for up to 20% of all injuries seen in sports medicine clinics, Rimel said. “Sports of non-weight bearing nature, such as endurance cycling, also put many well-trained athletes and active lifestyle consumers at risk of low bone mineral density, at premature age. Poor bone health ultimately manifests as osteoporosis later in life and is characterized by critically low bone mineral density and deterioration of the bone microarchitecture.”

Recovery is a component of health experiencing a groundswell of interest from today’s active lifestylers, said Rick Pope, senior vice president of B2B nutraceuticals for Arctic Bioscience, adding that optimizing performance of mainstream recovery ingredients, such as omega-3s, will become competitive.

“Due to its anti-inflammatory properties, Romega, a source of phospholipid-bound omega-3 EPA and DHA from herring caviar, has a unique ability to relieve muscle soreness via its natural abundance of specialized pro-resolving mediators (SPMs) and their precursors,” said Pope. “This is why many athletes, especially runners and cyclists, take Romega to prevent muscle soreness and decrease restitution time.”

For everyday people trying to stay active and healthy, inflammation is a painful impediment, but there is a growing awareness about negative side effects from non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) use, according to Eric Meppem, co-founder and commercial director of Pharmako Biotechnologies, which offers HydroCurc, a water-dispersible, bioavailable curcumin through distributor Gencor.

Maggie McNamara, marketing director of Gencor also noted Levagen+, a form of palmitoylethanolamide (PEA), which is an endogenous fatty acid amide produced naturally in the body in response to injury and stress. Inflammation-centered products have seen versatility in terms of positioning, including both pre- and post-workout, she said.

“The joint health category appears alive and well but anecdotally it seems like post-workout is the fastest growing category,” noted Dan Murray, vice president of business development for Xsto Solutions. “Young people are willing to make a full investment in healthy living and this means consuming protein and other supplements that will enhance the exercise experience.”

Active Aging
Memory and cognitive health are becoming a focal point among seniors, and demonstrating the role that exercise and nutrition can have on cognitive function could serve as a motivating factor for older active consumers.

Where performance nutrition meets healthy aging, people are generally aware they should focus on the longevity of their muscle reserve, and seek to get the most out of the protein they consume, said Shawn Baier, vice president of business development, innovative products division, TSI Group LTD.

“For the aging, active consumer, measures of function and quality of life have become equally as important as traditional measurements of muscle strength and mass changes,” he said. “Additionally, for sports/active nutrition consumer related studies, the effect of nutrients on muscle protein synthesis and breakdown and the related mechanism of these changes are growing in importance. It is not enough to see changes in measures of performance or function; we need to understand why and how these outcomes are occurring and what impact these nutrients are having on the underlying mechanisms.”

Especially among older or working-age consumers, there’s market demand for stimulant-free natural compounds that can deliver the feeling of energy. This need is becoming more mainstream in tandem with the sports nutrition market as a whole, Baier said. “We see cognitive performance and natural sources of energy having a brighter spotlight, starting this year. For example, ATP (PeakATP) is a compound that delivers the actual energy currency our bodies use. Therefore, it doesn’t rely on a stimulant effect but actually delivers real cellular energy.”

According to Fink, “One unexpected factor we encountered in 2020, and it may or may not be pandemic-related, is the rise in the inclusion of cognitive support ingredients in active/sports nutrition formulations. Our Zembrin Sceletium tortosum ingredient saw a dramatic increase in sales—particularly in active/sports products. We could suggest that people are using exercise as a way of maintaining balance and a good outlook on life.”

Concern about injury prevention among mainstream consumers also contributes to the relevance of bone and joint health ingredients in active nutrition. These ingredients, once reserved for the healthy aging crowd, speak to those who wish to remain active well into their golden years. “Many people are unaware that bone is a metabolically active tissue. Each day, old bone is broken down (bone resorption) and new bone is created (bone formation),” Meppem said. “What is bone health from a sports nutrition perspective?  Generally, this relates to two main factors, with the primary factor in the minds of athletes and nutritionists being the avoidance of injury, largely because this is the immediate danger to performance outcomes. Stress fractures are the most common bone injuries suffered by athletes, occurring relatively regularly in many sports, caused by repeated application of mechanical overloading.”

In addition to the risk of injury, there is, at least for some sports, a longer-term risk to bone health in terms of osteopenia and osteoporosis, particularly if bone mass is already low in the athlete during early adulthood.

Personalization
Traditionally recognized for its beauty benefits, the true versatility of collagen is now accepted globally, according to Rimel. “We are seeing greater demand for the whole range of benefits that specific collagen peptides offer. The trend toward personalized nutrition supplements will come to depend on diversity and ease of formulation. Well-established as a natural protein, collagen peptides lend themselves beautifully and easily to countless supplements, as well as beverage and food applications that can boost nutritional profiles.”

Being able to find products which conform to preferences and sensitivities is highly valued by today’s consumer, Murray said. Just as important to personalizing nutrition among active consumers is increasing access to testing. There is a demand for convenient solutions to ensure that supplementation is working, or to get a clearer picture of overall nutritional status. “Determining our vitamin D levels is another giant step to establishing supplementation levels. How much do we need? What amount is too much, or not enough? A bone density test, simple and non-invasive, will indicate if we need more calcium, vitamin D and vitamin K2 for optimum bone health.”

Precision nutrition for women can also tap into the shifting conception of health and beauty away from “skinny” and toward lean muscle mass and athletic prowess, Rizo noted.

“One practical way to meet the needs of the demographic of women who are into weightlifting, marathons, sprints, rock climbing, and other physical activities is to market ingredients with an understanding of muscle mass, how they can support exercise-induced pain, and how they may help aid with age-related challenges,” she said. “More and more women are exercising with programs geared towards building muscle and improving overall fitness, which in return, has caused a major growth area in the bone/joint supplement category. Women are looking for more targeted performance-enhancing supplements that cater to them specifically. They are seeking personalized products that are convenient, healthy, and that take their special needs into account.”

Communicating the Benefits  
Marketing research behind a product should provide clear explanations of its benefits, while consumer communications should remain succinct and provide adequate context, Murray noted.

“We can’t get too far ‘in the weeds’ on clinicals by splitting atoms for Olympic athletes,” Murray said. “We need to stay in general performance categories and improvement for the more casual sports enthusiast. This can still be a weekend athlete doing organized and competitive events, but they are looking for an edge and not a total transformation of their performance and times.”

While market experts have noted that younger fitness enthusiasts have overlooked established products for bone health, growing research on vitamin K2 may be changing the game, ushering in heightened awareness that calcium doesn’t work alone. This can be seen in the practitioner market which is quickly adopting vitamin D and K2 combos for their clients and patients, Murray said. 

“Improving bone health is a generational shift and the rewards will be seen 10-plus years from now,” he added. The phenomenal growth in vitamin K2 is proof this transition is finally occurring, and people are now considering preventative action long before a disease condition presents.”

A formulation that is targeted for maximum bone support may contain nutrients such as vitamin K, manganese, and boron, according to Rizo, who noted the form of calcium matters as well for both performance and delivery platform concerns. “Calcium in the form of eggshell calcium (ESC), a natural, beneficial form of calcium carbonate without the heavy metal concerns, or calcium citrate malate, a highly bioavailable synthetic form of calcium, are two high quality, non-commodity forms. Organic ESC is also available for use in organic formulations.”

Not to be overlooked, vitamin D is burgeoning as an ingredient of interest in fitness circles, and research continues to investigate benefits alongside other nutrients, Baier said. “There is no reason to think that will change as we see the value of this nutrient expanding well past the importance it has on bone health. Additionally, we see vitamin D expanding in the muscle health category as research shows it has an impact on muscle cell function; and studies with vitamin D in combination with nutrients like HMB, a metabolite of the amino acid leucine, have shown improvements in muscle strength and function even in subjects not exercising.”

Partnerships with elite athletes offer a marketing strategy for sports nutrition companies. The credibility behind these types of testimonials are unique differentiators, and something that other marketplaces don’t have a comparable setting for.

“There are several elite athletes we work with at Arctic Bioscience who use Romega in the daily nutrition regimens, from runners to Ironman competitors, professional wrestlers, and rowers. They take Romega for a variety of reasons,” Pope said. Athletes who use Romega include Therese Falk, a five-time Norwegian championship winner in 24-hour running events, as well as Tim Bennett, an active triathlete, Ironman, and Norseman competitor with more than 100 races under his belt.

“Athletes, like most people, tend to have low omega-3 blood levels, which makes them more vulnerable to injury, heart trouble, and brain injury,” Pope said. “Athletes deplete their omega-3 stores during training, so there is a need to make sure they are constantly replenished.”

Authenticity is much-needed when it comes to the endorsement of influential people, said McNamara. “Consumers are less likely to believe everything on pack now but conduct their own background research. This has also followed the disenchantment with some ‘paid for show’ online key opinion leaders, who don’t necessarily use, or aren’t necessarily qualified to endorse health or nutritional products. Authentic use is valued, as many consumers are less accepting these days.”