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The Editor's Take: Ayurvedic herbs evolve across channels, one herb at a time
The natural and specialty channel truly built the modern supplement industry, with new products discovered by the health enthusiasts before making it into the mainstream and mass market retail. The herbs of ayurvedic medicine provide a good example of that process in action, but they also raise a question about what happens as natural and specialty loses market share and parity with both mass market and e-commerce looms.
Turmeric was the herbal phenomenon of the 20teens, growing so quickly in some years that it seemed almost a fad. It wasn’t a fad, of course. In 2023, NBJ expects turmeric to be the best selling of the top 50 herbs, reclaiming the spot it held in 2018 before hemp CBD became the herb of the moment. Part of turmeric’s success comes from the mainstreaming effect, and we see that in the channel breakdown.
In 2022, mass market claimed 28.3% of turmeric sales. That’s notable for an ingredient that more people probably associated with cooking than health a decade ago.
Ashwagandha, a comparative newcomer but projected to be the second fastest growing ingredient in herbs and botanicals for 2023, behind only mushrooms, is well on its way to following turmeric into the mainstream. In 2022, mass market retail claimed 23.5% of ashwagandha sales in NBJ estimates.
Though the market share for ashwagandha is far more heavily weighted toward the e-commerce-dominated direct-to-consumer channel, it still looks one step behind turmeric in mainstream acceptance. You can find it in Target, but it’s not yet the everywhere-for-everything concept that Turmeric has become.
Why this progression and the approaching channel parity we see coming for the supplement industry matters is obvious when we look at the pool of Ayurvedic herbs in waiting. Turmeric and ashwagandha are hardly the only herbs in the Ayurvedic toolbox. Combined, turmeric and ashwagandha represent 84% of the Ayurvedic herbs market. All the other herbs make up just 16%, but in natural and specialty retail, those others claim a bigger slice of the market than either ashwagandha or turmeric, representing 31.8% of sales to mass market’s 21.7.
Natural and specialty has long been the birthplace of ingredient after ingredient. Can the next hot Ayurvedic herb make it to the mainstream without that cradle effect?
Read more about sales and channel migration in NBJ’s 2023 Herbs and Botanicals Report
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| | Rick Polito
As Nutrition Business Journal's editor-in-chief, Rick Polito writes about the trends, deals and developments in the natural nutrition industry, looking for the little companies coming up and the big money coming in. An award-winning journalist, Polito knows that facts and figures never give the complete context and that the story of this industry has always been about people. |
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| | | Dive into the world of natural remedies |
| | How receptive are supplement users to natural alternatives? Learn this and MORE with our 2023 Herbs and Botanicals Report. Get an in-depth analysis of the industry's top herbal ingredients, from their sales data and market share to what channels they're selling in and what conditions they treat.
For this special report, NBJ surveyed 1,000 herbal supplement users to determine what ingredients consumers are interested in and the challenges they're facing compared to 2022.
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