As we wrap up 2024, the NBJ team is reflecting on significant fluctuations in an all-but-boring year in the supplement industry.
2024 was yet another statement year for Gen Z’s influence on the demand for personalized, sustainable and functional products in the supplement industry. This is a generation of value-based and transparent consumers who are deeply connected through social media, and some of 2024’s biggest trends started with the digital natives. Magnesium’s 26% growth in the healthy sleep category was largely attributed to the influence of social media trends like the “sleepy girl mocktail.” Podcaster-approved nootropics and adaptogens also garnered the interest of a generation that is more in touch with and open about their mental and physical well-being than any other generation; only 15% of Gen Z claimed their mental health is “excellent” in a 2024 NBJ survey. Plant-based and eco-friendly options are also filling the shelves as brands respond to the holistic preferences of Gen Z. The attention economy has never been so valuable and, with their new adult-job salaries, Gen Z is making waves.
-Christian Irwin, Industry Analyst
Functional mushrooms continued to explode in 2024 as the fifth kingdom expanded into new territory. Millennials and Gen Zers, who are more willing to turn to this ancient medicine than their baby boomer parents, are fueling the growth as they explore new ways to combat the ills of 21st-century life and grapple with sleep issues and mental health problems. In response, new offerings are pushing the boundaries of what many thought was possible for the category, with more mushroom species, interesting delivery formats, fun branding and educational resources including bestselling books and Netflix specials pushing the category to exceed $450 million in supplement sales in 2024. The revived interest in psilocybin has also been fascinating to watch, as it finds a home in doctor’s offices and even the C-suite.
-Hannah Esper, Managing Editor
The healthy aging supplement market has changed quite a bit since 2019—evolving from formulations that mainly consisted of ingredients like resveratrol and CoQ10 and switching to more trending and targeted ones like ashwagandha and functional mushrooms. The total healthy aging category, which is gaining traction due to consumer desire for years of quality-over-quantity in life, grew 40.4% over the course of 5 years (from 2019) to hit $900.5 million in 2024 and is predicted to hit $1 billion in 2026.
-Erika Craft, Market Research Analyst
India is the new China. Admittedly, China’s consumer market is nearly twice that of India’s, and more manufacturing still takes place in China. But both these elements are growing faster in India. On the consumer side, India’s 8.7% outpaces China’s 6.3%, all set against global growth of 5.5%. But consider the rapidly growing middle class in India—where the middle class is slated to be nearly three times the entire U.S. population by 2030—and the pace of growth will accelerate. On the supply side, the change is even more rapid. India is taking a leading position in ingredient manufacture, both in agricultural production of herbs and botanicals and manufacture of synthetics as well as in AI and other technologies. And this is before Trump’s threat of China tariffs. Combine these elements and India becomes the nation to watch.
-Bill Giebler, Content & Insights Director
The relationship between the supplement industry and big pharma has always been fraught, but there is no arguing that the biggest thing in pharma in 2024 may be the biggest opportunity to hit the supplement industry since the pandemic. The difference here is that the opportunity may be longer lived. The "Ozempic effect," explored in detail in NBJ's Supplements in the Age of Ozempic Special Report, entails a population of millions of people who are either nutrient deprived while they are on the drugs, looking for natural alternatives to the drugs, or highly motivated to keep the weight off once they stop taking the drugs. The biggest opportunity may be in that latter category. With the high costs and sometimes severe side effects of the drugs, the number of people who used to take the GLP-1 drugs will inevitably be much larger than the number of people who are using them. Supplements, by many accounts, are better at keeping weight off than shedding pounds, making the post-Ozempic population a fantastic and enduring target for marketing.
-Rick Polito, Editor in Chief
As consumers get comfortable with genomics, microbiome and hormone testing, and wearables and AI gets better at turning all the data these tools churn out into real-time predictions and prescriptions, personalized nutrition has hit a tipping point and is about to go next-level. Almost one in five millennials and Gen Zers already track their daily dietary habits, and biohackers are driving data-driven approaches based on biology, genetics, epigenetics and hyper-vigilant tracking. The National Institutes of Health predicts AI-powered personalized nutrition will be a component of mainstream medical care by 2030—the same year Mintel anticipates every person in the U.S. will have access to their own personal and biological data.
-Robyn Lawrence, Senior Editor
