Held Sept. 9–11 at Margaritaville Lake Resort in Lake Conroe, Texas, the inaugural summit brought together industry executives, scientists, ingredient suppliers, manufacturers and other stakeholders to discuss where the nutraceutical industry is heading.
Asked what will define the next five years of nutra, Gonzalo Bisquerra, founder of Happy Caapi, pointed to an increasing convergence between technology and nature.
“We’re reaching a point in humanity where we’re almost like going back in how we used to innovate,” he said. “We started doing it ourselves. Then we went to machines, computers, and with the explosion of AI, is giving us a quicker way to come up with products.”
But Bisquerra said the industry is also returning to approaches it may have overlooked.
“What is also coming back to the whole innovation process is what we already knew and we forgot,” he said, pointing to nature and the return to natural sources for supplementation and other applications.
From technology versus nature to technology and nature
For Bisquerra, the future isn’t about choosing between technology and nature. It’s about combining them.
“We’re living in an age … where we are accepting the role of AI as an innovation catalyst,” he said. “And we are embracing the role of modern nature as another catalyst for innovation.”
The combination of technology, human intelligence and natural intelligence, he suggested, could accelerate innovation across ingredients, products and lifestyles.
“What you’ll see is no longer an or, but an and,” he said. “So innovation that has technology, human and nature combined into ingredients, products, ways of living, lifestyles.”
That convergence isn’t only happening at the ingredient level. The way consumers experience those ingredients is changing too.
Diana Morgan, founder and principal of Pink Catalyst Consulting, said conversations at FNIS pointed to increased collaboration across the industry, as well as innovation in flavor, delivery formats and the overall consumer experience.
“We are going to be seeing a lot in terms of flavor technology,” she said, pointing to emerging formats such as film strips.
“We’re also going to be seeing more in terms of the consumer experience, making it a holistic consumer experience,” Morgan added. “Not only efficacious ingredients, but ingredients that have a great story, that tastes good, that smell good, and that are fun to take.”
Keely Johnson, founder and principal of KLJ Consulting, also pointed to the need for the industry to move more quickly as technology and ingredient development evolve.
“I feel like we’re very traditional and we don’t really move forward very fast,” she said. “Right now, with even the addition of AI, we have to stay fast. We have to stay focused on what’s coming.”
Johnson noted delivery systems, technology and bioavailability, as well as fermentation, as areas to watch.
“Even look at our fermentation space, right? It’s changing how we’re growing things,” she said.
Supplements and food increasingly converge
The changing consumer experience extends beyond traditional supplement formats, according to Scott Dicker, senior director of market insights, SPINS.
“What we’re seeing in the Nutra world is that there’s been this removal of the boundary between supplements and food,” he said.
Dicker pointed to data showing that younger consumers increasingly prefer to get functional ingredients through food and beverages.
That doesn’t mean traditional formats are disappearing, he said. Rather, brands need to meet consumers where they are.
“It’s not just the typical categories, but people are wanting their format to fit their lifestyle,” Dicker said, pointing to supplement routines, on-the-go formats and products that blend into food and beverage occasions.
‘We’re selling to robots now as well as humans’
Meeting consumers where they are, however, isn’t only about what products look like or how they are consumed. It’s also increasingly about how consumers discover them.
Dicker said the industry is still at the beginning of a significant shift in product discovery as AI and machine-driven search become more influential.
“To nail discovery and research, the way people are thinking about products has changed a lot,” he said. “And we’re just at the tip of it right now.”
“We’re selling to robots now as well as humans,” Dicker added.
As consumers increasingly use new forms of search and discovery, brands need to make sure the underlying product data can be found and understood by those systems, he said.
“More and more, if your brand isn’t popping up on these searches, you’re losing sales every day,” Dicker said.
Innovation can’t come at the expense of quality
For all the focus on what’s new, however, one of the biggest opportunities may be making sure the industry doesn’t overlook what already works.
David Trosin, Senior Director, Nutrition and Wellness, NSF, said the industry’s focus on emerging trends can sometimes come at the expense of basic quality practices.
“I think one of the things that’s easy to do is constantly looking for the new trend,” he said. “And those are important. I understand why we’re doing that. It gains new consumers. But it can make it easy to overlook the one-on-ones, you know, the basics.”
Trosin said innovation and growth need to be supported by strong fundamentals.
“Innovation is great. We want to grow, we want to evolve as an industry, but it can’t be all about the trend,” he said. “If we’re not getting the basics right, then the evolution doesn’t matter.”
Rather than viewing quality as something that slows innovation, Trosin said it should be considered an investment that supports it.
“Quality is an investment. It’s not a cost center. It’s an investment in your brand,” he said. “And then it acts as a foundation for that growth, for that innovation, not as an inhibitor.”
The next era
Taken together, the conversations at FNIS suggest that the next era of nutra may not be defined by a single ingredient, format or trend.
Instead, innovation could increasingly come from connecting different pieces of the equation: technology and nature, science and consumer experience, new formats and established quality practices.
For an industry accustomed to chasing the next ingredient, format or trend, the bigger shift may be finding new ways to connect what already exists — and using those connections to create products that are scientifically grounded, relevant to consumers and built for the way people will discover and use them.