While all reported solid growth in the past year, the business leaders highlighted the need to keep up with the forces and factors that have ushered in the “prove it era” of proactive health defined by an increasingly curious and savvy consumer searching for clarity, credibility and certification for supplement claims.
With voices from Daily Nouri, NOW Health Group, Thorne Health and Nature’s Way, the discussion explored wide-ranging topics including the surge in the healthcare practitioner channel, the influence of GLP-1 weight loss drugs on consumer habits, the cautious adoption of AI and the prospects of contributing to making America healthy again.
Growth in the HCP channel: ‘Renewed focus on white coat’
The supplement industry is witnessing significant growth in the healthcare practitioner channel, an avenue whose products have historically been walled off from the rest of industry. As consumers increasingly seek out vetted, science-backed products for preventative health, the channel has grown, expanding its percentage of market share with the support of dedicated online dispensaries and education-focused consumer outreach. Some of the traditionally gate-kept brands have also removed the barriers to access, marketing the rigor required by practitioners direct to consumer.
“I remember when I was running The Vitamin Shoppe, there were brands that we coveted trying to get them into retail from that channel, but most of them were exclusive to practitioner, as was Thorne for many years,” said Colin Watts, CEO of Thorne Health. “What we’re seeing right now at Thorne and what many of our competitors are seeing as well, is particularly coming out of COVID, there seemed to be a renewed focus on white coat.”
Nature’s Way, which primarily serves the healthcare practitioner channel through its Integrative Therapeutics sister brand, has also observed great growth in the channel. Scott Woodruff, CEO of Nature’s Way, attributes much of this momentum to the convergence of a progressively savvy consumer and the channel’s rooted dedication to manufacturing and supply chain transparency.
“Consumers are more informed now than ever before,” he said. “If they want to find a best form, best researched magnesium, they’re going to find it, and four professional brands are going to be listed in the search engine,” he said. “This consumer knows more going in than ever before, and that is going to continue over the next decade. That is a real, secular trend.”
Jim Emme, CEO of NOW Health Group, noted that while the company’s Protocol for Life Balance healthcare practitioner brand has had a record year and fills an in-demand niche, it is by no means a dominant part of the the business. He did, however, note that the NOW-branded range of supplements has benefited from crossover interest and that many practitioners partner with the company’s Fruitful Yield health food retail locations in the Chicagoland area.
In the healthcare practitioner channel and beyond, the business leaders recognized the impact of GLP-1 culture, particularly as weight loss drug users start to seek out nutritional support products in the prove it era.
Looking past weight management
While science, R&D, marketing and legal departments have focused on determining the role of supplements in the current weight loss market, the CEOs noted that the penetration of GLP-1 agonist drugs has also forced promising conversations around broader metabolic health and general nutrition.
Watts, who previously held senior roles at Weight Watchers, highlighted the attitudinal shift that accompanies the GLP-1 use phenomena as people become more conscious about what they put into their bodies even after they discontinue the drugs.
“If you can actually find an efficacious drug, in the case of GLP-1s, that can start to move people in the right direction, the opportunity then to build around a regimen that continues to build efficacy, ideally, eventually helps people [towards that] happily-ever-after or maintenance situation, I think is absolutely critical,” he said.
Caroline Carralero, CEO of Daily Nouri, discussed the impact on the microbiome space, noting that “the microbiome is going to play a big role in this forever” since the top adverse event of the GLP-1 use is gastrointestinal. She also highlighted the importance of avoiding hyperbole and building upon a baseline of realistic consumer expectation, particularly given the potential for weight regain.
“There is no magic bullet, there is no magic fix, and so our position has just been, we’re going to be steady and offer a product that we know is great and has great clinical evidence around it, supporting weight [management] and metabolism and all of these different things, but not over promising or claiming anything around GLP-1 specifically,” she said.
Where recidivism quick-follows weight loss if not accompanied by lifestyle change, consumer adoption of category-adjacent products for endpoints like blood sugar or cortisol management is consolidating, as is awareness of more maintenance-focused categories like active nutrition and healthy aging.
“The weight management space then morphs into active and sports nutrition, right, because it’s about getting people to be more active, thinking about lifestyle change,” said Stephen Daniells, editor-in-chief of NutraIngredients, who moderated the discussion.
He referenced data from market research firm SPINS tracking performance nutrition as the highest growth category in the last couple years—one that has been bolstered by the mainstreaming of sports nutrition in active nutrition and defined as a proactive, lifestyle-driven approach to health.
Watts commented that the growth of active nutrition has been impacted by a generational shift that has its “fingerprints all over” the category and has Thorne switching its focus from Boomers to Zoomers (Gen Z) and millennials who prioritize proactive health.
“The line is deeply blurred between what we have historically called sports nutrition and what we also have talked about as wellness or prevention,” he said. “This performance market is not just sports, and it’s certainly not, professional athletes. It’s the everyday consumer. It involves energy, recovery, cognition, strength, resilience, […], and in some ways for us, it’s become quite foundational about the way our product operates.”
Emme described sports nutrition as a large Venn diagram of overlapping circles that encompasses performance but also longevity as a concept that is also resonating with younger demographics.
“Longevity is still a hot topic, it’s a hot topic with Gen Z and millennials, not just with geezers like me,” he said. “There’s a lot to be learned because they have curiosity, but they also have access to so much information—and more so than what the average person who’s older will even be curious about, but they have access to a lot of bum information too, […] so that opens the door for us to bring clarity and correction to information that just may be completely misleading.”
Woodruff added that Nature’s Way trademarked the Alive! brand 15 years ago and is therefore well-positioned in a market focused on longevity but also on not feeling the effects of aging.
“I think mastering this conversation and narrative is going to be one of the real opportunities as we go forward,” he said, highlighting healthspan as a second secular trend, as well as the need for authoritative and accurate research on the topic.
Artificial Intelligence: ‘Leading edge or bleeding edge’
Artificial Intelligence was also on the agenda, with some expressing more caution than others about first-line adoption.
“We’re certainly not an early adopter of technology,” Emme said. “There’s the old cliche of, ‘Do you want to be leading edge, or do you want to be bleeding edge? It’s going to change the way we all do things, and hopefully for the better, but we’re certainly not handing over every process we have over to it just yet, but we’re curious.”
NOW has begun a prudent AI journey, focusing initially on internal code development and select supply chain applications. It has not yet incorporated AI into its formulation though it may in the future. Emme also took issue with an Food and Drug Administration audit last fall that was prompted by what he said was a hallucination by Elsa, the agency’s closed-loop, generative AI tool, which now drives much of its inspection priorities.
In contrast, Watts expressed that he is very bullish about the subject, not just for Thorne but for the industry as a whole.
“I think there’s a lot of press that’s out there talking about AI transforming industries but particularly if you’re in an industry that is inherently complex, content rich, where your users are seeking something that is unique to them and really trying to navigate to the right answer for their own personal needs—AI represents a huge opportunity,” he said.
Through its computational biology conversations, Thorne determined that its priority was to create a native AI platform that would translate the company’s 40 years of content and clinical authority to “stand up an AI brain that would be unique to Thorne’s understanding of this industry.” The chatbot, known as Taia, officially launched early January to converse with consumers about preventative health- and lifestyle-related recommendations coupled with clinical citations.
“It’s a little bit of a secret sauce, I think, potentially, for the supplement business, but it’s important that it’s not a flashy condiment,” Watts added.
Considering brush strokes and third-party resources
Finally, the CEOs addressed the regulatory and legislative actions coming to bear on industry—whether the future of self-GRAS, the confusion surrounding the drug preclusion clause, a push to expand permissable health claims, the submittal of another mandatory product listing bill or efforts to incorporate supplements as qualified medical expenses for reimbursement.
Regarding Health Savings Account (HSA) and Flexible Spending Account (FSA) eligibility lobbying efforts, Emme confirmed that there is an initiative currently in committee but that industry cannot be too broad brushed with its demands.
“If you try to boil the ocean and get every supplement product approved for HSAs, FSAs, it has too much of a negative tax revenue effect, and the IRS will never approve it,” he said. “You have to start out with main supplements, generally accepted nutrients, and start out that way, and then there’s a chance to get the door open to add things in.”
He also noted recent successes like the reconsideration of the FDA disclaimer requirements on product labels, continued efforts to stop looming “whack-a-mole” restrictions on access to weight loss and bodybuilding supplements and the likely need to incoporate guardrails to preserve the self-GRAS pathway. Above all, he called for swift industry action to take advantage of a narrow window presented by a responsive administration.
Carralero, who has often voiced her support for the MAHA movement, agreed that now is the time to focus the supplement industry’s role in tackling systemic issues affecting America like infertility and obesity. She described the MAHA Commission as a super responsive group.
“They care deeply, and I think it’s the first time in a long time, I won’t say ever, but a first time in a long time that there’s been a general awareness and support of our industry,” Carralero said, adding that her top priority would be to ensure accuracy of claims, clinical evidence for efficacy and transparency around ingredient sourcing—all certified by a reputable third party.
Watts added that he also sees opportunity for MAHA to embrace an appropriately structured third-party certification scheme—particularly in an underfunded regulatory environment—to debunk outlandish claims and ensure consumer safety and trust.
“I believe that it’s difficult […] to rely solely on the FDA or various other branches to be the only arbiter of quality for our industry,” he said. “We’ve had a huge amount of success in embracing NSF certified, for example, for many of our products, not just our sports products.”
Woodruff concurred that if he could wave a magic wand, he would eliminate the ambiguity surrounding claims, along with their abuse by bad actors, so that responsible industry might effectively communicate the benefits of supplements to consumers.