During Bridge2Food’s EcoSystem Webinar examining defining food trends for 2025 and their implications for innovation in 2026, Spate’s report “The Fiber Opportunity: Is Fiber the New Protein?” unpacked how fiber consumption is evolving across food, beverage and dietary supplements.
The company’s analysis draws on its proprietary Popularity Index, which leverages Google Search, TikTok and Instagram data to uncover early consumer demand indicators before they are fully reflected in retail sales.
Fiber demand scaling up
According to Spate, the fiber category is no longer exhibiting the characteristics of a short-lived wellness trend. Instead, the data shows that fiber is a high-volume social media search term posting solid year-over-year growth. As noted in Spate’s report, across Google, TikTok and Instagram, fiber is now reaching a very large scale with tens of millions of monthly searches and mentions.
“Google Search is consistently leading interest,” Alyssa Williams Atkinson, food, beverage and wellness category insights manager at Spate, told NutraIngredients. “This search-led momentum signals sustained, intent-driven demand rather than short-term social hype.”
Spate’s analysis also suggests that consumer engagement with fiber supplements is evolving from a general wellness add-on to addressing more specific dietary or gut-focused concerns.
“Importantly, fiber demand is increasingly organized around specific digestive and gut-related need states rather than broad wellness exploration,” Williams Atkinson said, noting that this “mirrors early protein adoption patterns, when protein shifted from a single nutrient to a multifunctional, everyday platform ingredient.”
Regarding industry stakeholders’ interests, she added, this shift means brands and manufacturers should consider making a long-term investment in fiber “anchored in education, functional benefits and daily use cases, rather than positioned as an emerging or experimental nutrient.”
Drinks drive fiber format innovation
Among the categories Spate tracked, fiber-forward beverages are showing the fastest acceleration, driven by low-effort, ritualized behaviors like ‘loaded water’, ‘internal shower’ and chia water. These searches reflect how consumer attitudes toward fiber are gravitating toward ritualistic behaviors and simplified routines.
“Consumers want fiber in formats that are easy to integrate into daily routines and require minimal preparation,” Williams Atkinson said, and while much of the current engagement is still focused on homemade solutions, Spate sees clear room for commercial innovation.
For example, RTD drinks and mix-in products offer an opportunity for brands to translate “informal social rituals into scalable, repeatable products that reduce friction while maintaining functional credibility.”
Filling in the fiber supplement education gap
Spate’s data also highlights that demand for fiber supplements is currently driven largely by search rather than social engagement.
Consumers are actively comparing products and brands with “best fiber supplement” as a popular search term, and this activity indicates “that education and storytelling have not kept pace with intent,” Williams Atkinson said. Rather than indicating weak interest, she noted the disconnect points to an opportunity for clearer communication.
“Spate interprets this gap as unmet demand rather than lack of interest: Consumers already want fiber supplements but are not seeing enough clear, benefit-driven guidance on social platforms,” she explained.
Looking ahead to 2026, brands that close this gap through clearer education focused on outcomes, formats and use cases surfaced in search can better convert existing demand into trust, repeat usage and long-term loyalty, she added.
