With collagen, your brand can enter a new and growing mass market

Why are more consumers turning towards nutritional supplements? One key reason for this market’s robust growth is that consumers’ growing knowledge of nutrition and the impact of supplementation on health and well-being. The growth of the market for nutritional supplements also ties in with the rise of personalized nutrition, with individuals looking for dietary supplements that are tailored to their unique lifestyle, age, diet, and health goals.

This rising health-consciousness is contributing to the development of a new mass market for consumer healthcare that represents exciting opportunities for nutritional supplement manufacturers (see graph below). Positioned right in between the niche markets for medical solutions and the broader market for fast-moving consumers goods (FMCGs), this new market offers opportunities for any health and nutrition solutions that promise to help consumers avoid or reduce health risks. Nutritional supplements clearly can fulfil a major gap in this market.

The nutritional supplements market is diverse and complex, with distinct audiences expressing increasingly specialized demands and desires. At the same time, several broad consumer trends across the industry are visible. Here are three you need to know about as a manufacturer:

1. Sustainability
   Today, consumers are prioritizing diets that align more closely with healthy eating guidelines, while reducing their environmental impact at the same time (British Nutrition Foundation, 2021)⁽¹⁾.
   As a manufacturer, you need to make sure your operations and supply chain are as sustainable as possible.
    
2. Clear health benefits
   With more information available online, consumers are highly aware of health benefits and drawbacks of many food and drink products. Currently, buyers pay close attention to the products they buy, looking for natural and additive-free options⁽²⁾. The arrival of the post-covid era has accelerated this trend, with consumers having been made more aware than ever during the covid crisis of the importance of a healthy lifestyle.
   One way of catering to the demand for clear health benefits as a manufacturer is to work with ingredients whose health benefits are backed by solid science.
    
3. Traceability
   For more and more food and beverage consumers today, the safety of the products they consume is essential. Ingredient sourcing and traceability have become a vital part of this. They are also becoming central to branding and brand identity⁽³⁾.
   This third trend means that as a manufacturer you need to connect with ingredients suppliers with firm and trustworthy quality, safety and traceability controls in place.

Consumers are buying nutritional supplements for a variety of purposes. Some focus on supplements that will boost their sports performance or exercise regimes. Others look for healthy aging or weight management solutions. Enhancing skin, hair and nail beauty from within is another reason for taking supplements. Functionally, hydration, energy, recovery and protein content are key consumers concerns (see graph below).

The range of ingredients consumers are trusting for these purposes is broad and growing. It includes vitamins, minerals, proteins, amino acids and botanicals. Another nutritional ingredient gaining ground are collagen peptides, which we will discuss in more detail below. It’s important to mention that these supplements cannot replace, but must be combined with, a healthy diet and lifestyle.

One of the key reasons why collagen peptides are a preferred ingredient among consumers – and called ‘a 2022 superstar’ by some market observers – is its heritage. Even though the collagen trend is currently skyrocketing, this ingredient has been used for decades. Its unique range of health-related benefits have made it a valuable resource in many cultures throughout history. For example, collagen has a rich heritage in Japan, with its impact on health and its reputation for being safe and natural granting it ‘superfood’ status among Japanese consumers. In the West, consumers are quickly catching up on the exciting potential of this ingredient.

Numerous factors, appealing to both consumers and manufacturers, are driving collagen’s overall growth: 

• It’s a natural and safe ingredient.
• It’s a protein and proteins are hot among health-conscious consumers⁽⁴⁾ 
• It’s promoted by celebrities, gurus, and influencers⁽⁵⁾ 
• It’s backed by science, with an increasing number of scientific studies providing data on benefits such as beauty from within, sports recovery, mobility, and healthy aging⁽⁶⁾ 
• Its combination of benefits observed in studies – skin beauty, hair beauty, nail beauty, bone and joint health – is attracting new users. One example of a manufacturer tapping into this opportunity is our co-branding partner Nestlé, with its Molico collagen solution.
• It is easy to digest and comes with high bioavailability⁽⁷⁾, which means it is easily and quickly absorbed in our bodies, where its benefits are effectively released. Bioavailability is an important element in making your collagen-based supplement attractive to consumers.
• It is suitable for a huge range of applications, due to its ease of use, high solubility, compatibility with other nutrients and neutral sensory profile. These properties make collagen peptides suitable for conventional capsules and tablets, but also give it the flexibility for application in jelly, powder, gummies, bars, drinks and more.

What market opportunities can your brand seize with collagen peptides as nutritional supplement ingredient?
Here are some pointers:

• Beauty from within
  Data from Spins.com suggest that the top opportunity for collagen peptides is beauty from within: in the mainstream multioutlet hair, skin, and nails supplement sector in the US, for example, collagen peptides was the second-highest-selling ingredient in 2021, growing at an incredible rate of 61% in sales between October ’20 and ’21, with sales value rising from $76 million to $122 million. In the US’ natural channel for hair, skin, and nails supplements, collagen peptides were the number-one-selling ingredient, reaching $22 million in sales.
• Joint health and sports nutrition
  The same data identify collagen peptides for sports nutrition as the second and third highest-highest-selling ingredient in the same period. Sports powders, in particular, are seeing tremendous growth (see graph below).

Collagen peptides are not just good for consumers’ physical health: as more and more brands are discovering, it can also hugely benefit your business. As the world’s leading collagen company, we are eager to help you tap into the new and growing mass market for nutritional supplements targeting consumer health and beauty. We are trusted by major food, pharmaceutical and nutraceutical manufacturers worldwide for our high-quality and safe solutions as well as our high level of scientific and technical expertise. Peptan®, our collagen brand, is the global leader in its market. We can help you apply our collagen peptides in ways that will benefit your business, relying on science, co-innovation and speed.

[1]  Sustainable Eating - British Nutrition Foundation

[2]  Health Trends are Here to Stay - Blog | ShelfNow

[3]  ShelfNow becomes the first-ever blockchain-enabled marketplace, powered by Trackgood - Blog | ShelfNow

[4]  Why is protein so popular in people's diets? (foodmanufacture.co.uk)

[5]  Everything You Need To Know About Collagen Supplements And The Best Ones To Shop Now | Grazia (graziadaily.co.uk)

[6]  Dar, Q. et al., 2017. Daily oral consumption of hydrolyzed type 1 collagen is chondroprotective and anti-inflammatory in murine posttraumatic osteoarthritis. PLoS ONE 12(4):e0174705

[7]  Kleinnijenhuis, A.J., 2019. Non-targeted and targeted analysis of collagen hydrolysates during the course of digestion and absorption. Anal Bioanal Chem. 2019 Dec 24. doi: 10.1007/s00216-019-02323-x.