Matevž Ambrožič
Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another edition of PharmaLinea’s podcast. My name is Matevž Ambrožič, and I’m the Marketing Director at PharmaLinea, and I’m very happy to be joined here today by none other than Veronika Pipan, who is our Head of Scientific Support.
Veronika Pipan
Hello, everybody.
Matevž Ambrožič
So, we are all just freshly back from Vitafoods in Barcelona, and I can, I think I can speak for everybody who attended the show or exhibited that the move to Barcelona was fantastic, excellent on all accounts. The only possible downside that I can think of is that the show is, of course, naturally growing, and in Barcelona, we already had three halls, and as a consequence, being a visitor trying to cover it all was a little bit more difficult than in previous years in Geneva. But that’s what happens with the growth of the industry, of course. And, you know, even before, in previous years, people already had the biggest kind of issue of visiting a trade show like Vitafoods is, can I cover it all? Can I go to all the stands, see all the innovations? There’s always a little bit of FOMO, fear of missing out. Could I have missed a really crucial stand at the show?
And to counter this at least a little bit, we are holding this podcast where we will be basically doing a review of what we thought was, were the highlights of Vitafoods Europe in Barcelona. What were really the ingredients or finished products, or trends to look out for and to take note of for future reference? And I cannot by any means claim that in this podcast we’ll be able to cover it all, but we’ll go through what we feel are the main topics, the most important topics, and name some examples of ingredients, some examples of suppliers and finished products that we thought that stood out a little bit.
So the topics that we will be covering today, myself and Veronika, are longevity, beauty from within, GLP-1, women’s health, hydration, magnesium, sleep, galenic forms, geographic shifts, and at the end, some honorable mentions. So that’s what is in store for today. If that tickles your fancy, continue to stay with us and have a listen on these topics.
So, we will be starting off with longevity. By this, I mean healthy aging is a huge, broad term, can entail anything from, you know, cognitive decline to healthy joints and so forth. But right now, we’ll be focusing on longevity more in the sense of cellular health, which I think is a more recent trend, you know, characterized by the growth of ingredients such as NAD, NMN, resveratrol, and so forth.
First, a little bit about the introduction on the trend. We’ve been really seeing this trend go from … or this product segment go from a niche, category, specific to some D2C brands with some tests included, but very niche, to the mainstream. And by mainstream I mean also mainstream media, projects like, you know, Project Blueprint by Bryan Johnson, or Andrew Huberman’s podcasts, or even Netflix series like Blue Zone or Blue Zones, is it?
These are really driving the conversation to all kinds of consumers and indirectly driving the growth of the category. And this has not only translated to conversation about the topic itself and the underlying biology, but also to searches for supplements supporting this health segment. We’ve seen a really big spike in the growth of searches for NAD supplements and for NMN supplements. So, consumers are really starting to recognize these ingredients specifically and look for supplements that contain them. We’ve seen huge launches by, as I mentioned, not specific niche D2C brands, but mainstream brands like Bayer’s One A Day® Age Factor™ product or Country Life launching three products for cellular health, Swisse’s NAD product. Even David Beckham’s IM8 is pretty focused on longevity in the cellular sense.
So, with the many interesting products happening in recent years and also sales growth, we know specifically from the US, with SPINS data, that there’s been a significant growth in sales of products based on NADH, on resveratrol, on glutathione, all of these have growth recorded in 2024 in figures above 20%, so that’s pretty significant.
At Vitafoods Europe actually, NBJ held a presentation that showed that healthy aging is expected to be the second highest growing segment in supplements in the US in 2025. And it’s not only US-based, there’s also indications of growth in other markets. So, we know that H&H Group’s brand Swisse, their product NAD+ Restore, according to H&H Group, the reports, this was one of the two key products that were driving growth, besides liver health, in 2024.
So that’s kind of the market background, the trend background, and moving out now to Vitafoods and what we saw there, I will comment perhaps more from the perspective of what happened at our stand, because it’s worth explaining that our roles at Vitafoods are a little bit different. Whereas, I am mostly at the stand, although I would like to go around more, I’m mostly held up at the stand with meetings with clients or prospective clients or just random passersby. And I get more information from these conversations with brand owners, and I’ll be commenting more on that. On the other hand, Veronika is going around, and also other people within our team are going around the show and scouting for innovation and making notes, so we’ll be kind of bouncing back and forth with these two different types of insights. And I’ll start off with, for longevity, with kind of a comment on what we saw on the stand with interest from brand owners. So, I specifically had somewhere between 50 and a hundred, probably closer to a hundred, conversations with brand owners. So, the sample size is somewhat significant, not, it’s not in the thousands, as I would like it to be, but still, there is a couple of conversations that I had, and I actually expected perhaps a little bit more interest, a little bit more proactive interest from brand owners on this topic. We actually prepared ahead of the event, together with our, you know, sales team on what we can discuss about longevity, the products, the development projects that we have in store, and so forth. And in the end, we didn’t have to use this so much because we had few conversations on the topic specifically, as perhaps could be expected. These were conversations with brand owners from more developed markets. Markets like the US, markets like China, Western European markets like the UK and France. I have specifically had conversations with brand owners from these countries asking about products for longevity. But it seems that, as soon as we move on to less developed markets or more price sensitive markets where, you know, these kind of products are not essential, they’re more nice to have, you would need consumers with a higher disposable income to start spending on products that might, you know, result in longevity, increased longevity in, you know, 20, 30 years. It seems that the interest was a little bit lower, and there was more skepticism. I spoke to quite a few brand owners from Spain, from the Middle East, from Central and Eastern Europe, and so forth, that were skeptical about this, about this market, and about their consumers, being kind of mature enough or having enough disposable income to spend on these.
But moving on to you, Veronika. What did you see in terms of ingredients? Ingredient offer, ingredient suppliers, in these areas? I know you mentioned to me one specific stand that I also noticed, inevitably, because they were kind of our neighbors, this was EffePharm, right?
Veronika Pipan
Yes, yes. So, first, walking the floor of this huge Vitafoods this year, it was a really great experience. But what I really found interesting, there are a lot of these longevity ingredients, NAD+, NMN, also others like resveratrol and so on. But I didn’t see many of the ingredients that are actually authorized novel foods in Europe. For example, the nicotinamide riboside, which has been approved, for example compared to the NMN, which is not yet approved in Europe. So, there were a lot of these kinds of ingredients for longevity, but I would still expect maybe more of it. But as you mentioned, the EffePharm, I think they stood out, because they really have a lot of ingredients, NAD+, NMN. They’re also doing studies on it, on the ingredients. One of them was already published, one is still ongoing, or it will be published soon. I believe that they mention, they claim a nine times higher bioavailability of their NAD+ compared to others. So, that’s a huge thing.
Matevž Ambrožič
Is that based on a specific delivery method, or nine times higher because of…?
Veronika Pipan
I believe, yeah. They have some liposomal form of the ingredient. So, probably this is the main reason, I believe, that a lot of manufacturers go in this improvement direction, improvement of ingredients, especially for the ingredients that have known lower solubility, lower bioavailability, and so on, yeah.
Matevž Ambrožič
Right. So, unfortunately for us in Europe, we are still not able to use NMN in formulations, correct?
Veronika Pipan
Yeah, not yet. I hope that this changes soon, because it really is a booster of this kind of ingredients. They’re interesting, and I think in Europe, still, people want to buy these kinds of ingredients.
Matevž Ambrožič
Right, I agree with that. And one type of ingredient that is approved and is perhaps not the most expected player in the longevity arena is nucleotides. I believe you noted down a specific brand of nucleotide complex.
Veronika Pipan
Yeah. It’s a Ribodiet® from Prosol. We have known the nucleotides for many years, but they have been used in different indications, for example, for immunity, gut health, also nervous health, and now they are really entering strongly in this area of longevity with clinical studies and so on. So, we expect more from this in the future.
Matevž Ambrožič
All right. And there was also a quite nice highlight on a new product line at the Astareal stand, if I’m not mistaken. Of course, astaxanthin has been a well-known ingredient, antioxidant ingredient for many years, Astareal promoting it really well. But now they refocused, or repositioned, a complete line of, was it, on cellular health?
Veronika Pipan
Yeah. They basically positioned their line together with beauty and longevity. Not just the food supplements, but also the cosmetic line. So, it’s quite an interesting combination, I think, yeah.
Matevž Ambrožič
Absolutely. And it’s a great segue, I think, into our next topic, which is beauty from within. While at least my take on beauty from within for a couple of years was, it’s a bunch of collagen shots, right? It was collagen this, collagen that, which is, of course, very relevant and still a big part of the market. But I think there’s also some nice developments happening, and one that you mentioned already now is kind of the crossover, the merger with longevity. I think there’s the kind of the same type of ingredients being used as, you know, pure cellular health, longevity products. NAD, NMN, we can see them now in products that are meant generally, more specifically for beauty from within. And there’s a wider trend surrounding that. The popularity of this ingredient, NAD specifically, for beauty is driven also in part by phenomenon like celebrities going for intravenous NAD infusion therapies, as they call them. If I’m not mistaken, celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston, Kendall Jenner, and so forth. So, I guess that would spark some interest in the general public. And there’s many products that are launching kind of these products at the crossover, such as Holidermie is one very well-known brand. And of course, L’Oreal has been hinting at venturing more into supplements for some time now. Now, quite vocally, they’re actually already publishing educational articles on the functions of NAD and NMN, kind of building the ground, and sooner or later, they will be launching somewhere here at the crossover of longevity and supplements as well. And, I think a very good showcase of this trend is also the NutraIngredients Awards winner of this year in Europe. Of course, that was announced in Barcelona during the event. The Product of the Year Award for Beauty from Within was the product called NADH & Saffron Bioactives Emerald Elixir by HECH Europe. So, it really kind of is a great example of that. One other crossover that I see is also with hydration, of course, it makes sense. Skin hydration, it goes hand in hand also with, how would you call it, general body hydration.
Veronika Pipan
Yeah, of course.
Matevž Ambrožič
And we saw examples like that on the show floor, or examples of finished products. We saw NaturaCare, promoting their Hydra Beauty effervescent tablets. That was basically electrolytes with a spin for hydrating skin, and also Sirio’s HydraPearls™ Vital. This was for beauty and skin. These were kind of soft gels based on superb macro and collagen, hyaluronic acid. So, yeah, I believe there’s a kind of crossover happening there.
Veronika Pipan
Yeah, they do. I also see many indications merged together and resulting in different and interesting concepts for finished products.
Matevž Ambrožič
And I think that’s a good basis for this kind of development happening is, of course, studied ingredients, branded ingredients. Is there any specific beauty from within ingredient that popped out for you at Vitafoods?
Veronika Pipan
Yeah, for example, from Activ’Inside. They have a bunch of really, really interesting, nice ingredients, also scientifically supported. One of them is the Belight3™ ingredient. It actually got a NutraIngredients Award. And, it really, it’s an ingredient that really focuses on the skin health, for brightening effect, and actually like general skin health, anti-dark spots, maybe ingredient that is more interesting for the Asian markets who are really into this skin brightening, whitening effects, and so on. But I think that also the Asian interest in this is coming into Europe and the Americas in late years. So, I believe, this kind of ingredient will, if it’s not yet, it will be really interesting also in this part of the world. Then also, for example, Bionap’s RED ORANGE COMPLEX™, another ingredient, clinically supported, with great results also for skin health, for the protection of skin during the summer, and so on.
Matevž Ambrožič
I think the lab was actually used in, I hope I’m right right now, an IMCD product that was highlighted at the New Products Zone.
Veronika Pipan
Yes, yeah.
Matevž Ambrožič
Beauty Plus, Beauty Sleep product, it was called, right? And part of it was RED ORANGE COMPLEX™ from Bionap. You mentioned this interest in more specific beauty positioning, such as hyperpigmentation and so forth, moving towards Europe, and I think a great example of such a launch already in the B2C market manifesting was the recent launch by H&H Group. Their Swisse brand just launched a new kind of subline of products called Swisse Professional, this was in Italy. This was just a couple of months ago, maybe even just a month ago. With, maybe it’s five, or between five and ten SKUs, all for beauty, all with very specific positioning just for skin, just for nails, just for hair, skin rejuvenation, and so forth. Yeah, I think it’s very much spilling over to Western markets as well. Perhaps a move back to the roots, back to collagen. There’s a buzzword been going around, controversial, for a few years, and also present at this Vitafoods, as you told me, vegan collagen.
Veronika Pipan
Yeah. So, collagen is really present in the Vitafoods still, it’s everywhere. But what we see growing is the vegan collagen concept and it’s really interesting because, I mean, there’s different, there’s different concepts. One of them is having just amino acid complex, mainly focused on the amino acids that are mostly present in collagen. But then you can also have the plant extracts that contain these amino acids. So, that’s the second one. And the third one would be just the nutrients that support the collagen formation, for example vitamin C or other vitamins and minerals. So, we really see this new thing going on with the vegan collagen. Although the scientific support is not as strong as proper collagen from animal sources, but based on my questions on different boots, there is a demand, so people want vegan collagen. It’s coming, and I guess it will stay.
Matevž Ambrožič
So, even though we might not or scientific people might not agree with the term exactly right, it is a little bit misleading. There is a market demand, apparently, and the buzzword, it works in consumer markets, right?
Veronika Pipan
For sure, yeah.
Matevž Ambrožič
An example of which would be Astrion® from NuLiv Science. NuLiv, I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing that correctly, but Astrion® is a safe word, so I’m going to stick with that one. A collagen booster, an extract from plants?
Veronika Pipan
Yeah. It’s basically an extract of Astragalus membranaceus and Centella asiatica, which are, I think they are very well-known ingredients in the Asian markets, also from the cosmetics. But now they’re coming into this skin collagen area, and I think the ingredient is also clinically supported. So, based on the data on the boot, it shows that it actually increases collagen. Also increases hyaluronic acid in human skin cells. It was not a clinical study, it was a preclinical, but still, there is some science going on. So, I believe that manufacturers of these ingredients will, I hope they will perform more studies and show that even the vegan collagen can be a really useful ingredient for food supplements
Matevž Ambrožič
Excellent. So that was a couple of specific mentions of beauty from within ingredients and products. Of course, there are more. This is the disclaimer we have to, should put next to every category that we talk about. But let’s say that it holds until further notice, this disclaimer. And we can then move on to the next topic, which is the infamous GLP-1. As you all know, the rise of GLP-1 agonists has induced instant growth of a completely new category within supplements, and different product launches have been happening since 2024, which we can kind of segment into three categories. Roughly, the first category is products that support patients or users that are currently using GLP-1 agonist drugs. Because these drugs come with a number of side effects, then comes the opportunity for supplements to support these or, I mean to counter these side effects. Notable mentions in 2024 and ’25 have been by Jamieson, their brand youtheory. By iHerb, they launched a whole line, the Vitamin Shoppe, launched a whole line, and so forth. The second category would be natural alternatives to the GLP-1 agonist drugs. GLP-1 boosters that actually claim to boost GLP-1 levels through alternative, through certain mechanisms. Examples of these products include Kylie Jenner’s brand Lemme, which is actually currently facing a lawsuit because of this communication that is, of course, very risky, because we are in the area where drugs are active. It is an area that is, again, controversial and where communication needs to be really, really careful. And the third category, as I would roughly put it, is “faux-zempics”. This means just products that are not claiming to have an effect on GLP-1 at all. They are just, let’s say, piggybacking on the trend of renewed trend of interest in weight loss supplements and satiety supplements. So, they are just kind of sometimes even using the term “faux-zempics”, such as Arrae’s product, but not in direct relation to GLP-1. And when it comes to ingredients, this was a big thing across the Vitafoods floor. So in my view, as much as I was able to see, there are ingredients that have had studies on increasing GLP-1 levels from before, and now started to lean into that communication a little bit more. There are ingredients that are now starting studies on their effect on GLP-1 because they saw the opportunity, and then there are ingredients that are basically only kind of indirectly hinting towards GLP-1 and trying to kind of catch people on the phrase, on the keyword.
What are some of your honorable mentions in this category?
Veronika Pipan
Okay. For example, the ones that already have some data on GLP-1. I would say Eriomin, then Nextida by Rousselot. Also, Metabolaid® by Monteloeder.
Matevž Ambrožič
Incidentally, if I may interrupt you. I, just a couple of months ago in December, I spoke to SuanNutra, their marketing director. This is part of Monteloeder, or it’s maybe the other way around, I’m so sorry. But, anyway, I spoke to their marketing director because I was interested in whether or not they see an interest also outside of the US, because, of course, it’s a promising booming category in the US. But is there also commercial interest outside of the US? And they actually mentioned yes, that there is interest, and the most inquiries they get outside of the US, is from the UK and Spain. And in fact, this was back in December in the past couple of months, back in December, since they were running more communication around GLP-1, they saw a 60% increase in interest in inquiries for Metabolaid®, their ingredient. But back to you, Veronika.
Veronika Pipan
Yeah, sure. So, these were okay. Also, Beneo’s Palatinose is one of them that already had some science behind it. Then there were quite many ingredients or suppliers of ingredients that had ingredients, for example, as you mentioned already, for blood sugar management or insulin management, or like satiety, and did not necessarily study or measure GLP-1 in their previous studies, but are now planning to or even have ongoing studies where they intend to measure it. So they also want to ride this wave of GLP-1, which is great for the consumers because we’re talking about natural ingredients, natural extracts mainly. For example, one of them is Feiolix® from Anagenix, a really nice product. I had the honor to be present at one of their events at Vitafoods, also, where we discussed a lot about the science behind it, what they already have, and what they’re planning to do. So, I really expect nice studies also in the GLP-1 area, and we’ll see how it goes. And the next one is Phynova’s Reducose®, which also has some great studies in the pipeline. So, we have quite a lot of things to look forward to and, yeah, we’ll see what the results will be, hopefully really good.
Matevž Ambrožič
Yes, let’s hope so. Sticking to Vitafoods, we also saw in the New Products Zone, one mention of GLP-1, one reference to GLP-1 and this was Fine Foods, the product by Fine Foods called LiquiFY™ Metabolic Collagen, which at first to me seemed like collagen for beauty and joints, but in fact it’s based on a branded collagen peptide for blood glucose management. And this could be, I feel, either Rousselot’s ingredient or Nuritas’s ingredient because they mentioned AI-discovered peptide, and they mentioned activation of GLP-1 as well. And I believe both of those ingredients actually have data on GLP-1 activation, so this reference actually could be legit. And when it comes to, again, as I was mentioning before, the meetings that we had prior to Vitafoods with our sales team and so forth, we also spoke about GLP-1 and how to respond to inquiries for this, because we don’t have anything specific in our portfolio to address this particular product area. But in fact, this was the area where I was most surprised by the conversations that I had. And as much as I was able to talk to my colleagues after the show, there were practically no proactive questions about GLP-1 related products, as far as I know. Again, the sample size is not huge. I’m sure some of you listeners are now in outrage because you had so many conversations about this. And I guess it depends a little bit on the stand. If you’re highlighting GLP-1 a little bit, we typically try to, you know, ask people, is there anything specific that you’re looking for? And it’s possible that they gravitate towards the thing that they see on our stand, right? So, I’m sure there was GLP-1 interest, but I expected more. That’s just my comment, for what it’s worth. And, Veronika, if you’re ready, let’s move on to hydration.
Veronika Pipan
Of course.
Matevž Ambrožič
As you all know, hydration has been one of the fastest-growing categories in supplements in the past two years. This was really, it has really transitioned into, again, into the mainstream. From you know, just sports rehydration and post diarrhea rehydration with O.R.S. products now to everyday hydration, hydration for everybody. It’s a general lifestyle product. And this has really been driven by brands like Liquid I.V., even brands like Prime Hydration. Very much fueled by social media. And we see success by Liquid I.V.; they’re growing like crazy. There’s success by companies like, also in Asia, Otsuka and their POCARI SWEAT, they’re growing really well. We see data from SPINS in the US that the market, the hydration market, is still growing over 30%. And this is a category that’s over $1 billion. So, for such a mature and big category to grow by 30% in 2024, it’s quite outrageous. And, we have French sell-out data from pharmacies where they saw a nine-fold increase in 2024. Yes, that is correct, nine-fold increase. And this is specific because I’m talking about the pharmacy channel only, there’s open health data. Very nice. So, our data from France, and previously, of course, there were not so many hydration products in France, in pharmacies. And now, they are really entering the pharmacies, and therefore, they have this explosion of sales. And still in 2025, we’re seeing launches by mainstream brands, not sports nutrition brands, but mainstream brands like Thorne in the US, Zooki in the UK, and so forth. And at the show, I did see some finished product references, some finished product examples like NaturaCare, they launched, or they were promoting Hydra Beauty effervescent tablets. Sunlife was promoting their line of hydration products in sticks and effervescent tablets. We were promoting hydration, of course. Sirio, the gummy experts, were promoting hydration products as well. They have the previously mentioned hydration that’s more related to beauty and skin, but they also have HydraBites™ gummies, and they also have FizzyBits™ effervescent tabs, which I guess Sirio is not generally so well known for. I didn’t know they did tablets and found out this year. But yeah, in terms of maybe walking around the show floor and ingredients, what was your feeling?
Veronika Pipan
Yeah. Based on the boom in the market, the market data, the percentage, and everything, I actually expected more. There were some products. But what I see it’s still very basic in basic products, same ingredients. So, electrolytes, products based on sugar. There is not that much innovation. I mean, of course, there is not that much space for innovation in the hydration product, of course, but still, I would expect more. Yeah.
Matevž Ambrožič
Fair enough. In terms of ingredients as well, there could be some innovation, you think.
Veronika Pipan
Yeah. I mean, of course, there are some. So, they have hydration and some, for example, as we already discussed, the beauty, or hydration, and something else together. So, it’s like a more, like a combination product. This exists. But yeah, maybe something more innovative.
Matevž Ambrožič
Right. I think that maybe with hydration, because, you know, the basis of everything is, I guess, electrolytes, it’s a little bit more difficult to innovate at the level of ingredients. Of course, there’s like potassium from natural sources like coconut and stuff like that, where you have some interesting stories, added value, let’s say. But perhaps it’s more at the level of finished products where we can innovate. And I feel that the story that we were discussing with >Your< Hydramin Sticks, it caught on really well. This is a little bit of, a tiny bit of promotion of our product that you’re going to hear in this podcast. It’s not going to be even promotion about the product in specifically. I’m just going to say that, in terms of interest, that we saw from brand owners. So, we went through the data because we, you know, collect, we try to record as many conversations as we can. Not record as an audio record, but write down notes from as many conversations as we can from the random passersby that we meet at Vitafoods. And out of the close to 400 conversations that had a record to it, there were about 130 where explicit interest was shown in hydration. So, I thought that was immense, outstanding. I didn’t expect as much. To be fair, again, we were promoting hydration on our stand. We had a whole hydration station, so naturally they would gravitate to that and so forth. But still, you know, we cannot really force interest onto people if they’re not at least a little bit open to it, and in a third of the cases, they were, and we had really good conversations on hydration. And this was from various markets as well. I had super detailed conversations with European brands, Italy, Spain, Baltic, UK, also Chinese, Indian, other markets in Southeast Asia. The traction was really, really strong. But yeah, I guess in terms of ingredients, there’s still something here, some space left to innovate.
Veronika Pipan
Yeah. And also, as you mentioned, the finished products, from formats and so on.
Matevž Ambrožič
Exactly. All right. Moving on to women’s health.
Veronika Pipan
Okay.
Matevž Ambrožič
In my view, there was quite a few different finished products relating to women’s health and a lot of conversations that we had around women’s health on our stand. There was a lot of interest for specific subsegments as hormonal health, product specific for women over 50, vaginal health, very specifically. There was a product promoted at the New Products Zone from PharmExtracta, their product Crispact is now, I think, quite getting a bit famous because it’s collecting awards left and right. It’s based on a probiotic that is clinically, I mean, the whole product is clinically studied for both fertility and for HPV clearance. Very specific. Interesting niche, HPV. Apparently, there is a time in a patient, I mean, in a woman, that is diagnosed with HPV infection, where they cannot do really much about it. It’s like, there’s a wait-and-see approach. And in this specific period they lack products that could support them, and this is where products like Crispact jump in, apparently with their clinically studied probiotics for vaginal microbiome balance, which I thought was super interesting. And another example from the New Products Zone was Purasana’s Miss Harmony, which is based on Moodreal, which is a saffron brand. But also, importantly, Shatavari. And this was an ingredient that I was not so familiar with, I was not at all familiar with two years ago. One year ago, a good friend, Mr. Kenn Israel, notified me, or made me, called my attention, educated me about Shatavari’s emergence. And now we see it appearing more on the show floor.
Veronika Pipan
Yeah. Actually, this was my eighth Vitafoods. So, I’ve been to many fairs, but basically, Shatavari was never in the focus. I think now some people call it even next Ashwagandha, which is really interesting. But yeah, there was never focus on this ingredient, even though it is also, for example, in Europe, it is an approved or authorized ingredient, compared to Ashwagandha, which lately has some regulatory issues. And it might be interesting in the future, especially for Shatavari or Asparagus acemosis. Basically, the difference between them is also that Ashwagandha might be more leaning to the men’s health because of the effects on performance, also sexual health. While Shatavari is really more leaning into the women’s health. So, it’s really specific for women. It comes from the Ayurvedic science, so it’s been known for a long time, but not that much in Europe. And I’m not sure about the US, but I think in the Western part of the world, it has never been that much of a focus on it. Compared to Ashwagandha, which really has, there’s multiple brands, known brands. But now, because of all these regulatory challenges, there might be some limitations in the future. And what I see is that most of them or a lot of the producers of Ashwagandha, they’re decreasing the dosages. So, I guess that everyone expects that there will be some limitations on the use of Ashwagandha. And this might be a good chance for Shatavari or a similar ingredient to rise up. And I expect many, many other products, in the next year or next years, especially for women’s health.
Matevž Ambrožič
So, you at Vitafoods, you already saw it manifest in products or ingredient suppliers offering it or…?
Veronika Pipan
Yes, also in some finished products. But mainly I saw quite a few boots that truly focused, that had written “Shatavari” or something like that, which was not, it was not present, for example, a couple of years ago.
Matevž Ambrožič
Okay, very interesting. Something to follow, for sure. Something that has been present for a while – next topic, sleep. What is your first impression, or second or third, on sleep at Vitafoods?
Veronika Pipan
There was not that much focus. There was a lot of focus in the previous years. But now, there is still a lot of herbals. So, passionflower, lemon balm, and so on. Also, the peptides like Lactium®, these kinds of ingredients are still present very strongly. But there was not that much focus or any innovation in this sector, I believe.
Matevž Ambrožič
I guess the industry has a limited focus. I guess we cannot have, like, so many really highlighted star health areas or indications at the same time. We shift, we moved from, you know, even if consumers are still, you know, obviously taking sleep supplements, the B2B sphere is kind of focused on one thing, and then the next one or two or three. But yeah, I agree sleep was not in such focus at the show.
Veronika Pipan
But what I see is the emergence of phytomelatonin, for example. So, the plant-based melatonin. One of them, I believe it’s…
Matevž Ambrožič
Prosomnial.
Veronika Pipan
Yeah. Prosomnial, yeah. And there was another one, another one based on two extracts. Which is not exactly melatonin, but when taken as a supplement, it actually boosts the melatonin or the production of melatonin, which I think it’s also quite interesting, especially for, maybe for users that do not want to take melatonin. The first one was from pistachio, right? The pistachio source of, like a natural source of melatonin. But the second one is just like plant extracts, which basically means that you do not have to take melatonin, but the extracts will help your body with your own melatonin, which might be for some health-conscious consumers who don’t want to take hormones. Or maybe even in some countries, there’s some regulatory issues or limitations with the dosages of melatonin. So, now there are different options that consumers will have, instead of melatonin.
Matevž Ambrožič
I totally agree. And I also see this shift from just pushing melatonin to kind of, let’s say, circumventing it a little bit or, having it at least a natural source. So, it sounds more, or it feels more safe to the consumer. And also emphasizing all these, the absence of these negative side effects of high doses of melatonin, like non-habit forming, feeling of being refreshed and ready for the day when you wake up, no drowsiness, and so forth. I feel like this kind of bad reputation of a high dose of melatonin has, the industry has adapted to it in several different ways. The ones you mentioned with the ingredients, and also with communication. But yeah, I agree that, also at our stand, sleep was one of the more rarely demanded indications or product lines. So not in such trend yet, but still I think, with quality products that can, you know, improve sleep quality, not just, you know, act as a sedative. I think the market is still probably there, perhaps it’s in a little bit decline. But, you know, the market size is still not at all negligible, even though it was not a hot trend at Vitafoods.
Veronika Pipan
It goes also along with stress, indications of stress, and sleep. We can see a lot of these kinds of ingredients that promote, not really specifically focused on sleep, but it’s there. So, for example, adaptogens also have some positive effects on sleep.
Matevž Ambrožič
Or magnesium, the next topic.
Veronika Pipan
Sure.
Matevž Ambrožič
So, as I’m sure you are all well aware, magnesium has been a hot trend for a couple of years now. Insane growth in the US. We always have this nice SPINS data. Thank you, SPINS. They showed that in 2024, products based on magnesium grew by 33.5%. Again, a super mature category. Magnesium has been around for a long time. It’s a large category and having such growth on such a large base is outstanding. It’s not only the US, we know of products like the UK’s Holland & Barrett, they have a magnesium product that’s doing well, PharmaNutra’s magnesium is doing well. We see this in the reports and so forth. I think it’s interesting that consumers are searching for all these different kinds of sources of magnesium. It’s not only magnesium that’s trending as a search, but magnesium glycinate, magnesium citrate, threonate, and so forth. What’s your thought on magnesium, how it’s developing, and all these different sources?
Veronika Pipan
Yeah. So previously, there were a lot of products of magnesium products, but they were focused maybe on one magnesium salt or two. But now we really see the combinations. The first ones are the combinations of magnesium and some other ingredients, like plant extracts or like vitamins and so on, and the other one is multiple magnesium salts together. And this could probably be because of different actions that different magnesium salts have, so different benefits, based on the clinical studies that were performed. And the other one is also because of different elemental percentages of magnesium. So, if you want to have a product in a capsule or even if it’s in a stick, but if you want to have not that much raw material, then you want to have a magnesium source that has high percentage of elemental magnesium. And then if you want to combine the ones that have high percentage, for example, magnesium oxide, with the ones that have clinical support for, I don’t know, muscle function, or brain health. Then you would have to combine the two magnesium salts. And it really comes to a calculation, how much of which to use to have the best products. So, we really see the products with the combinations of different magnesium salts lately.
Matevž Ambrožič
One concrete fact, interest from brand owners from our stand – we saw again a lot of interest because obviously we were highlighting our latest liposomal magnesium product launch. But nevertheless, 22% of the conversations that were recorded and had some product interest expressed were surrounding magnesium. So again, pretty substantial. And, moving on to one of the last topics, Galenic forms. So, I think in my view, this Vitafoods was the Vitafoods, when it comes to Galenic forms, the Vitafoods of all kinds of chewables. So, gummies, obviously, but also soft chews, so with a slightly larger capacity for actives, chewable tablets, chewable softgels, chewable some things that look like chocolates. We have some information from Ourvita, the Polish group, that they launched this chocolaty chew format and already have really substantial numbers with clients selling over half a million units and so forth. There’s also Concordix, which was just adjacent to us with a stand, and I tried a whole bunch of their smart chews. It’s this kind of jelly-like chewable in a blister. They had a really nice tasting chewable.
Veronika Pipan
Was it tasty?
Matevž Ambrožič
Yeah, I was jealous of that. D3, CoQ10, Lutein, DHA, and so forth. And it has also a relatively high active load as well. So, I think the name of the game is making fun, tasty product forms that are stable and have high enough active load capacity. What do you think, Veronika?
Veronika Pipan
What I see, not just in the finished product zone, but also in the ingredients part. There is a shift into the functional food. So, everyone is looking into going from the capsules, tablets, and those traditional forms to more food-like product formats. And one of them, I will remember the K2D3 Lollipops for children, which I think it’s an amazing idea. I haven’t tried it, sadly. But, I think that there is really a shift to this direction. And, also, what I see a lot of, these vials or like shots, it was also in the previous years. There is really a bunch of different interesting formats, and I think the capsule and tablet form, they’re still present, but they’re taking the backseat, I think, lately.
NBJ actually had a presentation at Vitafoods, and they showed data that non-pills held already 65% of the market in 2024 in the US. I think the ratio might be a little bit different in other markets. I think, probably you’re right, because of such a large emergence of different non pill-formats, they will probably hold the majority of the market in most markets. But I don’t think that capsules and tablets will ever go below, let’s see a courageous prediction, below 40% of the market. Because they’re still so versatile, they’re still so useful for formulating. And also in certain cases, just create a perception of more of higher efficacy, of a more medicinal product as opposed to…
Veronika Pipan
Yeah.
Matevž Ambrožič
There’s two sides to the coin, I guess. And notably, I think an interesting format is also strips that have been around for a while, I think. But maybe I’m seeing a Renaissance: dissolvable strips, strip roll, even. We spoke to Fuwei. They commented that strips, dissolvable strips, in their case, are actually performing as well as gummies, interestingly. And, for Vitafoods Europe Innovation Awards, one went to Icesupp Ltd., which is a, as they call it, the first frozen nutritional supplement of its kind. It’s like a popsicle. I know this has been around for a while, but congrats to them on the award, and it goes again to speak to the trend you were mentioning, the functional food format trend. Let’s go to, from shifts in Galenic form to geographical shifts. I believe you’re the expert on ingredient suppliers, but what do you see as a trend there?
Veronika Pipan
Well, as I already mentioned, this was my eighth Vitafoods. So, I’ve been to the fairs a lot. And what I see from the past years, the Asian, especially Korean, but also Chinese manufacturers and suppliers, they really got their game. Like, they have really good ingredients, clinically supported ingredients. I believe that any ingredient that I come to the booth and ask about, they already have some science behind it, which is really great. And I would say this is really nice, a nice way, because in the past it was not the case. There were many ingredients, like innovative ingredients and interesting, but without any clinical support or any support whatsoever. So, I think that I really like the emergence of Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, other suppliers, manufacturers, especially in the area of probiotics, prebiotics, postbiotics, but also others like plant extract and so on. So, I hope that we will see even more in the future. They have their own pavilions now in the Vitafoods. But I believe they will expand, and I hope that they will, because they really have some interesting ingredients.
Matevž Ambrožič
I think it can only be good for industry, this kind of competitiveness. The monopoly of well-established European brands is why we have this extra development and good quality development, not just competition in terms of price, right? One geographical shift or interesting geographical trend I would note about the visitors, the brand owners, is that for the first time ever, at least since I’ve been with the company and in my six Vitafoods, not as many as yours…
Veronika Pipan
Or seven.
Matevž Ambrožič
Some. For the first time, I was talking to not one, but a few American brands that were specifically looking for European manufacturers. So, this obviously has to do with the tariffs, American brands that have any business overseas to avoid the tariffs. They’re looking for basically European or other good-quality manufacturing. This was a big surprise to me the first time I heard it, then spoke to some colleagues, made sense of it. And I guess we’ll see more of that in the future. I mean, depending on what happens. We’re not here to make some political predictions, because that’s too tough. We’ll just speak about Vitafoods. And the second geographical trend I will note about visitors is that we’ve always had Chinese companies, Chinese brands come up to us, ask about our products. But I think now we’re really seeing a shift towards demand for premium products, so that evidently, the Chinese premium segment is developing well and they’re looking for products with added value, with clinical substantiation, with unique brands, and so forth. Right. And now, just for the quickfire of the last few topics, honorable mentions. So, me and Veronika, we both chose a couple of different short mentions, short honorable mentions that we feel you guys should, or we should all look out for in the future. I’ll start off with PEA, I think it was, PEA is really having its moment. It’s a super interesting ingredient for natural pain management or discomfort because we can’t say pain. There has been, you know, Levagen has been ruling the branded PEA segment for some time now, but I think it’s about to get a run for its money. We have this year Indena launching its branded PEA Giellepi, two Italian brands launching PEA, FrauPharma as well. All of these basically add value, improving solubility mainly, or dispersibility of PEA. Over to you.
Veronika Pipan
Yeah. I would mention all the pet ingredients. I think that there is a really huge shift. They were present before, but now even the suppliers or manufacturers of ingredients for human consumption that they had ingredients before, and now they’re really shifting into it and even focusing. Their entire boots are focused on pet health and ingredients for pet supplements. So, I believe we that not just humans want to be healthy ourselves, but I think we want to have healthy pets, and I believe that in the future this will be even more like. I believe that there will be an entire pavilion of just ingredients, just for pets, in a couple of years.
Matevž Ambrožič
Very much could happen. I know I am a consumer, not a consumer, I buy them, I don’t consume them. But, you know, yeah, when you have a pet, you would, I think, do anything for them. So, buying a supplement is very much the thing I start with, aside from walking them and so forth. But, yeah, definitely the segment to look out for.
And, one last notion, I mean, a mention from myself is creatine, again, an established ingredient, but it has been enjoying a renewed growth. Again, we know this data from the US. But it seems to be expanding in different health areas, different indications that we see it has a use, a health benefit. We actually had inquiries on our stand for creatine, specifically for its benefits in cognition and its benefits in women’s health. So, something, again, very interesting to look out for.
And with that, I’d like to conclude today’s podcast, today’s summary of Vitafoods. I know there are so many different ingredients and finished products, and brands we didn’t mention, but we just tried to make a snapshot of it and hope that some of it will be useful for those of you who didn’t manage to cover the entire show floor. So, thank you, Veronika, for joining me today, for providing all the insights that you have. And thank you for our viewers, and see you next time.
Veronika Pipan
Bye.
