Sports Nutrition & Weight Loss Report

Nutrition Business Journal
May 1, 2011
319 Pages - SKU: NUT6382146
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Sales of sports nutrition & weight loss (SNWL) products rebounded in a big way in 2010. After a lackluster 2009, during which SNWL reported flat overall growth—its worst performance on record, dating back to 1997 when NBJ first began to track the category—the year 2010 marked 9% annual growth, $2 billion in new sales, and $22.7 billion in total sales.

Much of this success can be attributed to strong growth, 10% annually, in the mass channel. “Sports nutrition products are not just for bodybuilders and serious athletes anymore,” said Bob Green, president of Nutratech, in a recent interview with NBJ. “The appeal has broadened to a more general audience—soccer moms, fathers-on-the-go, weekend warriors—who wants to increase energy, improve physical and mental performance, and simply stay in shape.”

Within the mass channels, energy drinks & shots remain king, generating $12 billion in sales, a figure that dwarfs any other product category through any channel. Consumer demand for sports beverages remains fervid, despite mounting evidence of adulterated formulations and questionable ingredients in some smaller brands. In January 2011, O.J. Mayo of the Memphis Grizzlies became the latest professional athlete to blame supplements for his failing a drug test and facing league suspension. According to Mayo, an energy drink containing DHEA and purchased at his local gas station triggered the positive test result.

Nutrition bars began to make some noise in 2010, posting 12% growth after six years of underperformance. Reasons for this renaissance include a wave of new product launches, sophistication in marketing bars to different consumer sets, and continued innovation in delivery formats. NBJ profiled Honey Stinger in its February 2011 issue for its launch of a waffle developed by Lance Armstrong, and companies on the verge of breaking into the top echelon of bar manufacturers—companies like thinkProducts and KIND—have clear, targeted branding strategies evident in their labeling. ThinkThin in particular speaks to savvy messaging with its clean packaging aimed at harried female shoppers.

Despite the solid sales performance and a rosier outlook, ominous storm clouds continue to hang over the entire category as regulators reiterated their distaste for the pervasiveness of bad actors, particularly through the internet sales channel. In a December announcement from the Food & Drug Administration, regulators joined forces with major trade organizations—Council for Responsible Nutrition, Natural Products Association and United Natural Products Alliance, among others—to increase levels of self-policing by industry and draw clearer bull’s eyes on three supplement categories—bodybuilding, weight loss and sexual performance—for the rampant product adulerations in the market. Silenafil, sibutramine and anabolic steroids remain top tainting agents, as dangerous pharmaceuticals continue to crop up in product formulations almost every week.

Furthermore, within the popular pre-workout category of sports supplements, one particular ingredient is drawing outsized attention from industry for its potential to result in a tragic re-telling of the ephedra story. Supposedly derived from geranium extracts, methylhexaneamine (MHA), otherwise known as 1,3 DMAA, carries with it a questionable pedigree, questionable science, and growing evidence that the compound, as now present in popular products such as USP Labs’ Jack3D, is in fact a drug and not a dietary ingredient at all. Many industry experts predict a bad outcome for MHA and, perhaps, the overall pre-workout category, as adverse event reports and subsequent product recalls seem little more than a matter of time.

The news in weight loss is less ominous, but there’s little reason to sing the category’s praises. Innovation has ground to a near halt in weight loss, as formulators resort to proprietary, science-backed ingredients and evidence little interest in the cutting edge. “No clear ingredient is leading the recovery process in weight loss,” said Scott Steil of Nutra Bridge. “The driving force right now is companies going back to proven ingredients with a history of strong market presence. Weight loss is almost going back in time, to a time of proven ingredients that let you make claims and deliver efficacy to consumers.” Sales results speak directly to this time traveling, as the category finally returned to pre-ephedra levels not seen since 2003. Small cause for celebration, but 2010 did stem the negative sales growth in weight-loss over the past three years, as the category delivered 1% growth on $4.0 billion across pill-form and meal-replacement supplements. Fringe ingredients like bitter orange, hoodia, fucoxanthin and Irvingia still register in the category, while green tea, CLA and 7-Keto remain the strongest performers. Speaking to the stagnation in weight-loss, Frank Jaksch of Chromadex put things quite succinctly in a recent interview with NBJ: “Weight loss equals caffeine now.” The category does, however, appear too big to fail or stagnate for long, as the Centers for Disease Control now reports that 1 in 3 U.S. adults could have diabetes by the year 2050.

NBJ’s 2011 Sports Nutrition & Weight Loss report features in-depth analysis of the major product categories and sales channels shaping two of nutrition’s most controversial and successful categories. This report focuses on two weight-loss categories—pill form and meal replacement supplements—and three sports-nutrition categories—supplements, nutrition bars & gels, and sports & energy drinks & shots—with discussion of the key trends affecting each of these markets and the industry as a whole. It also capitalizes on 14 continuous years of data, including market size, growth, and revenue estimates for top companies in the industry. In addition, the report includes 100 company profiles, SWOT analyses of market leaders, analysis of the recent uptick in M&A activity in the space, analysis of the SNWL value chain as it pertains to raw material & ingredient suppliers, and a newly created historical timeline for perspective on the category and insights about its future.


 

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