The market for energy support products is dominated by drinks, shots, and mixes aimed at offering consumers a boost of stamina or alertness with staple ingredients like caffeine, B-vitamins, and amino acids.

However, as people hone their focus on overall well-being and more natural lifestyles, clean label and plant-based platforms featuring non-stimulant ingredients or nootropics are appealing to a broader consumer set.

Many new energy products in today’s market are also targeting health benefits that overlap with other high-demand areas, such as sports performance, weight management, mood, and more.

Energy remains a top-ranking motivator behind supplement purchases. Data from FMCG Gurus showed 47% of consumers buy supplements because they’d like to boost their energy levels, about the same percent who buy them for general health and wellness (48%).

“Similar to what we are seeing across other vitamins and supplements categories, energy supplements are combining multiple health focuses under their belt,” said Haleigh Resetar, corporate communications specialist at SPINS. “Energy supplements are adding ingredients to their formulas that claim to support immunity, brain clarity, and gut health, among others. Consumers are looking for these products that provide an all-in-one (or pretty close) solution to their overall health and wellness goals.

“We are seeing supplement brands migrating into beverage categories,” she continued, “to capitalize on this growing idea that shoppers are interested in doubling up their hydration with other vitamins and ingredients that add to their goals, whether that be beauty, joint health, or even mood support. Overall, consumers are not simply looking for a product that meets one need, they want a multi-faceted product that can positively contribute to multiple areas of their life, adding the pleasure of convenience to their day.”

Market Breakdown
Led by brands like Red Bull, Monster Energy, and Rockstar, global energy drink sales have been estimated at $43-46 billion (GrandView Research and Allied Market Research), with multiple firms projecting the market is poised to grow at a CAGR clear of 7% over the next several years.

According to wellness-focused data technology firm SPINS, U.S. sales of shelf-stable functional beverages, including energy drinks, totaled $10.57 billion over a 52-week period ending Feb. 20, growing 19.9%.

Meanwhile, condition-specific energy supplement sales reached $355.9 million on 4.5% growth for the same time period, according to SPINS data.

In terms of functional ingredients found in energy supplements, the top 10 by dollar sales were: taurine ($243 million, +6.4%); caffeine ($185.1 million, +33.4%); vitamin B12 ($177.6 million, +5%); vitamin B complex ($56.9 million, -3.7%); animal protein ($50.4 million, +0.3%); animal and plant protein combinations ($38.9 million, +33.4%); tyrosine ($26.7 million, -8.5%); creatine ($16.6 million, -4.5%); phenylalanine ($13.9 million, +8.9%); and women’s multivitamins ($13.5 million, -14.4%).

Looking at percentage growth among the 30 top-selling energy ingredients, standouts included guarana (+230.3% to $3.8 million); magnesium (+97.2% to $2.7 million); L-theanine (+68.3% to $3.1 million); multi-minerals (+61.2% to $10.4 million); and goji berry (+28.2% to $11.2 million).

Looking purely at annual sales growth, energy support supplements with N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) topped the charts with a meteoric rise of 1,850% this year, reaching $399,699 in sales, according to SPINS.

Despite some early evidence suggesting a potential benefit for NAC in managing COVID-19 symptoms, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has suggested in warning letters to companies making illegal disease claims that NAC can’t be marketed as a dietary supplement based on drug preclusion standards. Retailers like Amazon have since pulled NAC supplements from their platforms and the future is uncertain.

SPINS also shared sales data related to performance nutrition categories. Notably, hydration and electrolyte supplements grew 168.2% to reach $209.5 million; pre-workout products grew 52.8% to $231.1 million; and creatine sales reached $16.6 million on 31% growth.

Caffeine’s Companions
Non-stimulant caffeine alternatives, and even lower doses of caffeine from natural sources, are increasingly finding their way into new innovative formulations.

“I’d like to see the trend toward less caffeine accelerate,” said Marianne McDonagh, vice president of sales for Bioenergy Life Science, Inc. “The industry’s reliance on stimulant ingredients has been the norm for too long, and it’s more problematic than we realize. Instead, by adding ingredients such as Bioenergy Ribose that counteract the energy losses required to produce stimulation, a balance can be struck.”

Nonetheless, caffeine remains king today, according to Larry Kolb, president of TSI Group LTD, which supplies PeakATP, a patented form of Adenosine 5’-Triphosphate disodium that is identical in structure to ATP found within the human body.

“Due to the increasing focus on mental edge, more and more nootropic ingredients are finding their way into energy drinks like L-theanine, Bacopa monnieri, and PeakATP, for example. Besides the RTDs (ready-to-drink products), non-pill formats are gaining huge momentum, especially in the form of gummies.”

Kolb said a growing demand for “better-for-you” alternative energy products with reduced or zero sugar and caffeine will continue to widen the window of opportunity for natural energy ingredients to enter into more conventional formulations, and establish a stronger mainstream platform.

“The rise in non-caffeinated, energy-boosting supplements indicates consumers are looking for energy-increasing alternatives without stimulants,” McDonagh concurred. “Increasingly, Bioenergy Ribose is a preferred ingredient because it’s clean-label, stimulant-free, and delivers the energy we all need at the cellular level. Clean-label and plant-based platforms remain very strong.”

Ingredients that serve as energy currency of cellular processes have been trending as options for next-generation energy products. Clinical trials can strengthen the position of compounds like NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide), ATP, and glutathione—all endogenous and involved in a range of metabolic activities—as natural and direct sources of non-stimulant energy.

McDonagh noted that BLS recently expanded its clinical research plans to cover the relationship between these three compounds not just for energy, but for healthy aging as well. “NAD, ATP, and glutathione test parameters have been on the rise in the last several years mostly because those three biomarkers help in the aging process, and we all want to live healthier, longer lives.”

 

A Wide Net of Applications
With energy deficiencies an issue nearly every consumer grapples with at some point, it’s important to formulate with ingredients that hit specific targets most relevant to the intended user, Kolb suggested.

A sports nutrition consumer, for example, will be looking to energy products that confer tangible results in areas such as performance and recovery time, Kolb said. On a more general note, it helps to segment based on physical or mental performance parameters. “On the mental side, increase in attention, focus, concentration, or the prevention of exercise-induced mental fatigue are key targets, and on the physical side, sport-specific performance targets like strength or power,” he said.

Stress and mood support often overlap with the energy category among innovative products, McDonagh said. “Clearly, adaptogens are being included in a variety of products. Anti-excitatory substances, or what we might call energy-positive materials, are very important to balance overstimulation, whether that is a stress response to external stimuli or jitters from too much caffeine. Our work at BLS has led us down the path of purine and pyridine biosynthesis, hormones, mitochondria, and the overall promotion of a healthy, stress-free cell.”

Regardless of the specific targets a product is formulated for, consumers across the board want a benefit they can feel, “plus more flexibility to manage interventions on their own,” McDonagh said. “Our research with BLS’s patented ingredients includes a focus on differences consumers can see and feel, in part because that’s how brand loyalty is created.”

Unique Challenges
Several challenges present obstacles to progression of the energy support market. One issue is creating products that can offer specific health benefits for a variety of personalized applications.

“The categorization needs to go further than just, for example, those with stimulants and those without,” Kolb said. “We initially saw pre-workout or energy drinks being used in e-sports, but now we have more e-sports-specific products that deliver different benefits from a regular pre-workout product.”

There is a good deal of work to be done when it comes to educating consumers on the role that various ingredients have in helping one feel energized, and no product is a one-size-fits-all solution. “Consumers currently do not realize that energy is an ambiguous term, there’s a gap between marketing and science,” McDonagh said. “Stimulation doesn’t equate to energy. In fact, stimulant use causes the body to produce less energy. Ignoring this gap risks brand harm because consumers are becoming increasingly better-educated.”

Further, Kolb said that finished product companies don’t always ensure that dosages match those seen in clinical studies. “There are so many multi-formula supplements in the market using certain ingredients in lesser amounts than what are scientifically-proven for being efficient, or even worse, claiming benefits seen in proprietary formulations which are not backed up by science [for commodity ingredients],” he noted.


Delivery Considerations
With energy products intended to work in an acute time frame, the convenience of grab-and-go options is typically reflected in product delivery format, as seen in RTDs, stick packs, individually-packaged snacks, and other portable options.

In terms of sensory experience, bitterness can present challenges as demand for low- or no-sugar options grows. “Taste is one of the major issues for energy drinks but also for alternative delivery forms such as gummies or chewable products,” said Kolb. “Caffeine is bitter and is usually formulated with high amounts of sugar to mask the taste. Bitterness is limiting the amount of caffeine that can be used in an ‘energy water’ for example. Sugar and flavors are needed to cover caffeine’s taste issues; that’s in contrast to the better-for-you products, low calorie, natural flavored water products that have been so popular lately.”

There are specific formulation concerns for products promising longer-lasting feelings of energy, especially those which are caffeine-free, Kolb added. Finding ways to sustain but not delay the sensation of energy that a product offers—or complement fast-acting ingredients with those active over a longer period of time—could improve the consumer experience.


NPD On Trend
In terms of innovative product development, crossover benefits with energy include hydration, satiety, metabolism/weight management, mood and stress, and caffeine alternatives. Even among conventional canned energy products, which once differentiated themselves based on flavors and sugar content, exploration into new ingredients is trending.

Hydration has gained heightened attention thanks to companies like Nuun, the functional hydration brand that Nestlé Health Science acquired last year, and Liquid I.V. stick packs. Nuun recently debuted an Energy formula that combines 80 mg of green tea-derived caffeine with ginseng, B vitamins, and electrolytes.

The functional beverage Biolyte, formulated by anesthesiologist Dr. Luther “Trey” Rollins is billed as “the IV in a bottle,” containing the same amount of electrolytes as a 500 ml Lactated Ringer (IV bag). It also includes ginger and dextrose for nausea, B vitamins and L-carnitine.

The sparkling water brand Ardor offers a zero-sugar beverage marketed for hydration that contains 100 mg of organic caffeine, 200 mg of L-theanine, and 100 mg of sodium from sea salt.

As demand for energy becomes more mainstream, dealing with hunger throughout the day and improving metabolism may allow energy products to cross over into the weight management space as well.

Bragg Live Food Products, an apple cider vinegar producer that offers a range of wellness foods, launched Bragg True Energy Apple Cider Vinegar supplements this year. Bragg’s ACV formula delivers 750 mg of acetic acid per dose plus six essential B vitamins.

Mood health and sleep support are another important category that relates to energy. Beyond alertness, people are also seeking ways to counter the stress they experience, providing a key entry point for a range of botanicals (especially adaptogens, a class of botanicals linked to stress reduction) and other ingredients with similar positioning.

Garden of Flavor’s Turmeric Ginger Energy Elixir balances organic ingredients like ginger, turmeric, and lemon with herbal flavors for a caffeinated alternative to increase energy naturally and support overall well-being.

When it comes to caffeine, less could be more, especially when paired with other ingredients that offer appeal of their own. Manitoba Harvest, a leading hemp foods brand, introduced a new line of hemp protein products that are blended with other plants. The Organic Hemp + Matcha powder blend delivers 56 mg of caffeine along with 6 grams of protein and 2 grams of fiber.