Better health and well-being, both mental and physical, is as important to consumers in 2025 as it’s ever been — but this time it’s personal. Savvy, self-aware, and increasingly discerning, shoppers across Europe are fully committed to the project of health optimization and are searching for advanced, tailored solutions to support their journey.

This departure from one-size-fits-all nutrition is ripe with opportunities for supplement producers, but it also presents a healthy dose of complexity. How can brands deliver individualized products that work for a wide audience? Do they specialize and potentially exclude key demographics? And where does the ever-advancing march of technology factor into this evolving trend-scape?

With the nutraceuticals sector poised for mass personalization and all the questions this could raise, the insights at Vitafoods Europe can’t come quickly enough. As the countdown to the event begins, let’s explore a snapshot of topics likely to dominate conversations on the show floor, and how the industry could harness them to face the customized future of nutraceuticals with confidence.

The Smart Side  

The term “smart nutrition” was once synonymous with calorie-controlled or weight loss foods, but the category has found a new context with the rise of tech-enabled personalization. In 2025, brands are moving towards tailored nutrition solutions that work “smarter” for their target consumers and to do this, they are employing the three p’s: private label, plant-based, and personalization.

Think of the convenient, nutritionally complete meal replacement shakes and smoothies offered by brands such as German startup yfood, of which food giant Nestlé acquired a minority share in 2023. As major players begin to explore such offerings through private labelling and acquisitions, brands interested in this trend should be on the lookout for ways to push their products to the front of a growing crowd.

One route to differentiation producers could take is a renewed focus on plant-based positionings, with a functional twist. While sales have slowed slightly in some of the more established markets, demand for plant-powered products is alive and well in the smart nutrition segment. Led by early innovators like Huel, we continue to see product launches featuring plant-based positionings grow, even as the market matures.

Rick Miller, food and drink associate director for specialized nutrition at Mintel, believes these ingredients will fuel the next generation of smart products — as he told me when we sat down to discuss the insights he plans to share in his upcoming presentation at Vitafoods Europe.

“Further NPD in this subsector of smart nutrition includes functional ingredients, such as Unico’s Gemini Vegan Meal Replacement featuring ashwagandha and acai berry,” he said. The key here is to combine the “star power” of trending functional ingredients with the established heath halo of plant-based staples like soya protein and oat milk to craft products that catch consumers’ increasingly split attention.

This is where the final aspect to the smart nutrition trend — namely, the way products are marketed, researched, and sold — enters the picture. According to Innova Market Insights, nearly a quarter of Europeans use digital health resources like nutrition advice or supermarket scanning apps, and one in five follow healthy eating “hacks” on social media. The proliferation of subscription-based meal kits and curated supplement packages is a clear sign of this trend in action, with their online questionnaires and AI-powered algorithms making them especially attractive to tech-savvy consumers looking to address their unique health needs.

Innovation in the Age of Ozempic

Forget everything you thought you knew about the weight management category; the emergence of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) medications like Ozempic and Mounjaro has turned everything upside down. Over the next 10 years it is estimated that tens of millions of people will turn to these solutions, whether to manage chronic metabolic diseases or to support with weight loss. Either way, there are huge opportunities for supplement brands to capitalize on the trend and even help fill some of the nutritional gaps widespread use of GLP-1s could open.

First, though, there’s the issue of adherence. “We know from the data that there’s a tremendous amount of cycling on and off [these medications], whether it’s [because of] side effects […] [or] because you can’t afford to stay on every month,” said Jennifer Cooper, chief scientific officer at LPS Health Science. She highlighted that this “maintenance mode” could create significant opportunities for nutraceutical products that help users keep their hard-earned results between medication cycles. Examples of such solutions include appetite-suppressing supplements or metabolic boosters featuring ingredients like curcumin, B vitamins, caffeine, and even collagen peptides.

Equally crucial are solutions designed to support the body during medication use, particularly in terms of muscle mass preservation, skin health, and energy enhancement. As Cooper noted, “There’s a huge nutrient gap that comes from the fact that we’re decreasing our calories so quickly […]. [This is why] we now talk about ‘Ozempic face’ […] because we start to lose some [of the] integrity of our skin when we become nutrient deprived.”

Proven efficacy and nutritional density will, therefore, become an even more vital factor in consumers’ supplement purchasing decisions as they hunt for ways to meet their nutritional targets without any additional calories.

Amid all the buzz around GLP-1s, it’s important to remember that core nutrition needs haven’t gone away. Doctors, dietitians, and even the drug producers themselves are keen to emphasize that GLP-1s aren’t “magic pills” and that building healthy lifestyle habits is still the best route to stable, long-term weight loss. So, while the emerging opportunities are exciting, supporting tried-and-true nutritional truths is still a viable route for supplement brands.

Focus on Female-Centered Nutrition

Our final top trend sees women take center stage. The female health market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.1% from 2025 to 2030 and yet, despite being one of the fastest-growing nutraceutical segments, significant barriers to innovation persist.

A long history of exclusion, generalization, and assumption in clinical research has left today’s researchers with a serious lack of female-specific health data. In fact, an analysis of journal articles on the topic of sports nutrition conducted between 2014 and 2020 revealed that just 34% of all participants studied were women, and only 6% used female-only models.

This disparity has repercussions all along the supplement production and supply chain, with developers unsure where to focus research, healthcare professionals reluctant to recommend solutions in the absence of evidence-based results, and individual women feeling stuck in their health goals.

The good news is the tide is beginning to turn. As calls to increase equality in both sex and gender recruitment for clinical studies intensify, previously underreported conditions experienced by women of all ages and backgrounds are finally receiving the attention they deserve.

For example, a growing body of research has highlighted the widespread issue of low energy availability (LEA) among female athletes. As explained by Susan Kleiner, sports nutritionist and founder of the consultancy High Performance Nutrition, “LEA is when you underfuel your body for the level of exercise that you do. Because energy metabolism works by […] siphoning off energy to the area of highest demand, our body will give the energy to exercise and take it away from other very important functions […] like your reproductive system, or your immune system.”

Though this may not impact athletic performance in the short term, Kleiner warned that “[some female athletes’] careers were very short because their bodies break down […] over time.” Now armed with a deeper understanding of LEA, sports coaches and athletes can design complete nutrition plans optimized for female bodies competing at the highest levels.

Increased awareness of women’s unique nutritional needs also extends well beyond elite sportspeople, with supplement brands investigating solutions for menopausal support, female gut health, and the impact of the menstrual cycle, to name just a few.

At Vitafoods Europe 2025, attendees will be invited to explore the full spectrum of female experiences through the Women’s Health Spotlight, including dedicated presentations and an exclusive Women’s Networking Breakfast, sponsored by Kerry, where professionals from across the industry can build new connections and share their experiences as women working in the nutraceutical sector.

As Many Stories as there are Supplements

The trends and topics discussed above are exciting, intriguing, and potentially revolutionary — and they are only the beginning. The nutraceutical sector is a diverse, busy, and at times, confusing space, but it is always bursting with innovation. Cutting through the noise to give supplement professionals the insights, opportunities, and inspiration that matters, Vitafoods Europe is the place to discover more about all the stories shaping our industry in 2025 and beyond.

To secure one of our final registration spaces, visit: https://www.vitafoods.eu.com/en/registration.html