Founded in 2019, Vow Nutrition was built on the core values of quality, trust and transparency. Offering a range of high-quality sports supplements, from protein powders, bars and fizzy drinks to pre-workout and creatine, the sports nutrition brand has quickly become highly respected, used by Olympic athletes and Premier League football teams.
Stevens’ personal journey as a body builder and athlete informed the brand’s ethos, with innovation a key pillar of the brand’s success.
“When I was first building Vow, I looked at the industry and noticed there was a real lack of innovation,” he told NutraIngredients. “Everyone was trying to make the cheapest protein powder. There wasn’t any real innovation there; brands were selling flavoured protein powders as cheaply as possible to try and take market share.”
“We set out to innovate and create products that athletes wanted and needed—something that added a genuine benefit and helped them to reach their goals,” he said.
Now, the brand is working on a range of new products, including savoury protein snacks, athlete-targeted vitamins and minerals, and chewable supplements.
Going against the grain
Vow Nutrition is a UK-based company that was founded on the literal ‘vows’ Stevens made when creating the brand. This included manufacturing and developing all its products in the UK, testing them for banned substances, and ensuring they were good enough for the elite, but accessible to everyone.
“I had this big list, probably about 15 ‘vows’, which made me think the word ‘vow’ would be a great brand name,” he said.
These core principles have remained central to the brand’s identity, and paved the way for Vow Nutrition to become a partner of Team GB at the 2024 Olympic Games.
Now, the brand has a range of nutritionally focused products in innovative formats, from Sparklean, a carbonated protein drink, to their latest product development: Creatine Chews. These retro sweet-style supplements offer an alternative to the popular creatine gummy—bypassing a number of manufacturing challenges while remaining convenient for consumers.
“We tested a number of creatine gummies two years ago and found large discrepancies, but I don’t believe the brands knew,” he said. “We didn’t go public with the information and instead focused on creating a better solution.”
“We know by formulating creatine into a chewable that it’s a proper supplement,” he added. “The chews may not be as luxurious as a gummy, but we’re not a confectionary brand, we’re a sports supplement brand. Sports supplements are a performance driven, results-based category.”
Vow’s Creatine Chews are made using a low-moisture format, which protects the creatine from degradation and ensures shelf-life stability. Formulated with dextrose and sweeteners, they are designed to be taken throughout the day to keep creatine levels topped up.
“Based on my own research, I believe topping your creatine levels up across the day is the best way to take creatine. The dextrose gives you a quicker uplift of creatine and the chews can be kept in the car or somewhere convenient for ease of use,” he said.
Available in three flavours—Strawberry, Mint, and Apple, Mango and Lime—the chews are currently the brand’s best-selling product, with sales growing, in part, following a packaging rebrand.
“Since the bad press on creatine gummies, our chew sales have gone up,” he said. “We’ve also changed the packaging on our chews so they appeal to a wider audience, including women. There are so many hardcore-looking tubs of creatine which don’t appeal to women in the same way, so we’ve tried to make the product more fun,” he said.
Stevens said he is now looking to expand the chew range further to encompass new ingredients, with Vow’s Berry Burst-flavoured amino chews already on the market.
This will be launched alongside the savoury protein snack range, giving health-conscious consumers the chance to consume nutrient-dense foods that can be deemed as a ‘treat’.
“We’ve got some great new product development that we’re working on,” he said. “We feel that we’re now leading the market because of the route we’ve taken over gummies.”
Looking ahead
With Vow’s products already available in 16 countries, Stevens is now looking to grow distribution channels even further, with his sights set on breaking into major UK supermarkets, as well as global retailers such as Walmart.
He is also looking to expand Vow’s current product offering to include other ingredients that could be of benefit to athletes.
“We’re looking to partner with some more sports teams and expand our offering to include products which sports science departments want to give their players,” he said. “This might include things like vitamins and minerals or other ingredients which they deem to be important. Magnesium, for example, has emerged as one of the top ingredients nutritionists are recommending for recovery and sleep.”
However, Stevens remains focused on accessibility, vowing to ensure the everyday consumer can continue to access Vow’s product offering.
“Knowing that we have been fuelling the elite and the highest profile athletes is amazing. For me, that’s what it’s all about,” he said. “But we are also giving the everyday consumer the chance and the opportunity to buy the products the elite are using.”
“We’re Informed Sports tested and use only the highest quality ingredients, but we’re not overpriced. We have lower margins than other brands, but we have tried to make it feel more mainstream, to try and get more people to use our brand.”
