Driven by both consumer trends and capital investment, the global nutritional supplements market has seen a surge in activity over the past year, with expansion accelerating. Nestlé first targeted the dietary supplement market, integrating several core brands from Bountiful into its portfolio. Then, in February of this year, IFF announced its acquisition of HWP, a leading manufacturer of nutritional supplement formulations and capsules. On March 31st, the UK-based Tate & Lyle Group completed its full acquisition of Chinese dietary fiber company Quantum Hi-Tech.
Chinese market is also booming, and the industry landscape is undergoing significant changes. In June 2021, By-Health’s market capitalization exceeded 60 billion yuan, making it the global industry leader and significantly increasing the industry’s market capitalization. From May to December of last year, seven brands in the fields of oral beauty, nutrition for pleasure, and personalized nutrition received funding at various stages, from seed to Series D.
Nutritional supplement brands are launching new products at a dizzying pace, with significant progress across a range of dimensions, including youthful design, contextualized positioning, snack-like forms, and personalized efficacy. These products’ convenience, palatability, aesthetic appeal, and differentiated efficacy are attracting a wider consumer base. However, significant room for improvement remains in areas such as the preservation of functional factor activity, the synergistic effects of multiple ingredients, and the effectiveness of in vivo release and absorption.
In a business environment where everyone is vying for traffic and creating hit products, how can nutritional supplement brands escape the trap of “hit product backlash” and build lasting competitiveness with truly effective products? What’s the secret to enhancing product performance through “dual marketing technology”? Besides technological innovation, what other opportunities are there for innovation in nutritional supplements?
How can the nutritional supplement market break through the “ceiling”?
A 2020 PwC report noted that the global nutritional supplement market has maintained an average annual growth rate of 6.3% over the past five years. Six key consumer drivers—”health awareness,” “sports nutrition,” “customization,” “aging population,” “new lifestyles,” and “increased health spending”—are driving global market growth.
The Chinese market can be summed up in two words: “high growth” and “low penetration.” While the average annual growth rate is as high as 8.8% (according to Euromonitor International), the consumer penetration rate is as low as 20%, with per capita consumption only one-seventh to one-fifth of that in developed countries.
The McKinsey Health Consumer Atlas, released in April this year, noted that over 70% of China’s post-90s generation consider health a top priority. “Laziness,” “fast-paced,” “fanatical,” and “following the crowd” are the four defining characteristics of this youthful health trend. These consumer preferences are driving the nutritional supplement market toward everyday, scenario-based, functional, and fashionable products.
At the product level, Chinese nutritional supplements have shown significant progress in dosage form diversity, technological innovation, and application relevance.With a constant stream of trendy concepts and new funding rounds, the nutritional supplement market is experiencing a period of growth. However, if we look at individual consumers and manufacturers, we will see many unavoidable problems.
Single nutrition, physical and mental burden
Today’s nutritional supplements come in a wide variety of sizes and forms. Replenishing daily nutritional needs requires consuming multiple products simultaneously. For consumers, the hassle of comparing before purchase, storing after purchase, and taking multiple doses daily creates a significant burden, both physically and mentally, on top of daily meals.
Unfriendly to take and poor palatability
China’s aging population is becoming increasingly severe. With declining swallowing ability and poor digestion and absorption, they face numerous challenges in taking nutritional supplements. However, many products lack appropriate features tailored for the elderly . Furthermore, young people today face challenges with regular diets and routines, often under the pressure of work and life. This can lead to swallowing difficulties and reduced digestion and absorption . They also need nutritional supplements that are easy to take, easily absorbed, and precisely released.
Low product effectiveness, backlash from popular products
Encapsulation technology is widely used in the nutritional supplement industry, but the technology itself is still undergoing continuous development. Many supplements still have inconsistent release profiles, absorption efficiency, and efficacy, making it difficult for consumers to gain confidence and encourage repeat purchases.
Under the Internet thinking of “grabbing traffic and creating hot products”, brand owners are keen to develop hot products that cater to the trend, but the efficacy is often unsatisfactory. The life of such products is fleeting like a meteor, and it is impossible to implant them into the minds of consumers, let alone bring long-term benefits to consumers and companies. The industry has fallen into a vicious circle of “using hot products to improve performance, but because of the short life of hot products, forced to repeatedly invest in creating more hot products.” “Hot product backlash” is becoming a chronic disease that many companies cannot eradicate but cannot ignore. How to escape the development trap of “hot product backlash”? Creating truly effective, differentiated, and strong-barrier products is the best answer
Led by “Dual-business Technology”, nutritional supplements enter the era of “efficient” utilization
In the field of nutritional supplement efficacy research, Ogi Biomedicine has independently developed “Double Nutri” technology. This liposome encapsulation technology combines emulsifiers, natural plant colloids, and functional ingredients . This highly stable encapsulation of oil and water phases, even insoluble ions, homogenizes the active ingredients into micron-sized particles for rapid absorption and utilization by the body, maintaining ingredient stability . It also reduces unpleasant flavors in nutrients and extracts.
According to Foodaily, around the “dual-business technology”, Daiwa Biopharma has applied for multiple invention patents in mainland China, Taiwan, Japan and Australia, and won the silver medal of the “Japan Tokyo Invention Award”, the gold medal of the “Canada International Invention Award”, the gold medal of the “London International Invention Award” and many other awards from 2018 to 2020.
What is so magical about liposomes powered by ultrafine technology?
The Secret of Ultrafine Liposomes
Liposomes are enclosed vesicles composed of a lipid bilayer of phospholipids and cholesterol. They offer high targeting, sustained-release properties, and skin affinity. Manufacturers widely use them as carriers for functional/active ingredients in pharmaceuticals, health foods, and cosmetics.
Leveraging ultrafine technology, Ogi Biomedicine has enhanced the encapsulation efficiency and stability of traditional liposomes, allowing multiple active ingredients with different properties to coexist without interfering with each other. Ultrafine liposomes effectively reduce the impact of the human digestive environment on active ingredients (such as damage or degradation). This allows for a slow release of active ingredients, enhancing their absorption by intestinal cells and prolonging their effectiveness.
Traditional ultrasonic oscillation methods for preparing liposomes suffer from uneven spherical quality, unstable performance, and low encapsulation efficiency . Hydration reactions, induced by adding water to dried lipid films or under an AC electric field, often waste the encapsulation material in the reaction solution.
Oegi Biomedicine utilizes microfluidics and thin-film pressure injection technology to produce ultrafine liposomes, enabling the consistent production of uniformly sized liposomes. The lipid bilayer structure achieves an encapsulation rate of up to 80%, significantly reducing material waste. When formulated into beverages, these ultrafine liposomes maintain their internal contents even after ultra-high-temperature sterilization.
Particle size control is also key to the high performance of ultrafine liposomes. The average particle size of liposomes is only 1-3μm, equivalent to 1/9 of a red blood cell, which can quickly initiate the biochemical absorption process without the intervention of physical digestion in the body.
More absorption, stronger effect
A special preparation process allows the ultra-fine liposomes to deliver their active ingredients to the human body. Human studies have shown that compared to unemulsified fish oil, consuming emulsified fish oil containing Double-Nutri™ increased plasma absorption of EPA+DHA by 5.5 times . Double Nutri™ liquid calcium is absorbed 22.3% more than liquid calcium. Compared to solid calcium, absorption is increased by 261.8%. Ultra-fine liposome-encapsulated vitamin C has a 33% higher absorption rate and remains in the body for up to 8 hours.
A skin test experiment on 20 women aged 35 to 60 found that Lipogen collagen microliposomes prepared using Double Nutri™ technology increase skin collagen content and enhance skin moisturizing properties.
High concentration + efficient absorption = high competitiveness
The dual-action technology highly enriches nutrients within the liposomes, significantly improves absorption efficiency, and ultimately results in high-efficacy performance of the nutritional supplement product.
If calculated based on the amount of nutrients ultimately absorbed by the body, a single vial of this “dual-action technology” liquid nutritional supplement has the equivalent efficacy of 65 commercially available tablets, 110g of softgels, or over 200 vitamin gummies. This high performance not only significantly reduces the nutritional supplement burden on consumers but also ensures the product’s competitive advantage.
How can nutritional supplement innovation break through its own “siege”?
As consumers increasingly prioritize functional foods, the global dietary supplement industry has experienced rapid growth over the past few years. This is driven by a growing emphasis on in vivo stability, delayed-release profiles, and bioavailability. By improving liposome preparation techniques, reducing processing scale, and employing higher-performance coating materials, nutritional supplements are continuously breaking through their limitations, achieving superior efficacy and expanding functionality.
The efficacy of nutrients has improved dramatically with the evolution of liposome technology
Since its founding, DaGen Biomedicine has been committed to developing special functional ingredients. To achieve more efficient raw material development, it pioneered a “biomining” business model. Leveraging genetic technology, big data, automation, a smart formulation platform, and Industry 4.0 manufacturing systems, it has made artificial intelligence and automated laboratories a reality. By integrating global biotechnology resources, DaGen Biomedicine develops high-performance products.
While continuously researching and optimizing raw material extraction and screening conditions, Taigi Biopharma gradually expanded its focus to nutrient encapsulation technology. Through extensive market research, they recognized the shortcomings of traditional capsule supplements. For example, fish oil capsules are not only too large to be swallowed, but consumers also cannot immediately detect oxidation or deterioration of the ingredients within. Furthermore, rapid and effective absorption by human cells is crucial for product efficacy, and particle size is a key factor influencing absorption. Research results showed that microemulsification technology can effectively improve the bioavailability of nutrients. To this end, Taigi Biopharma began researching differentiated, highly bioavailable encapsulation technologies.
In 2018, building on years of research, Dajiang Biomedicine proposed the “dual-action” concept, incorporating ultramicrofabrication technology to develop a novel liposome-encapsulated carrier that combines multiple ingredients, offers high stability, and offers a high absorption rate. Since 2019, Dajiang Biomedicine has been conducting human trials with oil-soluble nutrients, calcium, and water-soluble nutrients, ultimately completing a complete nutritional supplement solution ready for mass production this year.
Foodaily has learned that Dajiang Biomedicine has invested a total of 120 million yuan in the development and improvement of its encapsulation technology. Researchers recently published their paper, “Double Nutri Technology for Enhancing Vitamin C Bioavailability,” in the internationally renowned journal, the Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology.This marks international recognition of the company’s progress in core nutritional supplement preparation processes and lays a solid scientific foundation for commercialization.
Improvements in processing scale for nutritional supplement products
Dual-action technology controls the particle size of liposomes to the micron level, achieving extraordinary efficacy. Nanotechnology, already widely used in multiple industries, is also beginning to make its mark in the field of nutritional supplements.
European food ingredient company Prodalim has developed Capsoil, a technology for creating ultrafine, water-soluble powders from natural oils. Capsoil powders contain 30% to 60% oil and its bioactive compounds. The nanoscale particles offer a large surface area, enhancing the bioaccessibility and absorption of the encapsulated oil-soluble ingredients. Prodalim has reportedly tested Capsoil powder in various water-based applications, with “very encouraging” results regarding the bioavailability and stability of the active ingredients.
In April of this year, Japan’s Sakura Dream Co., Ltd. developed “Ponet NMN Nano Liquid,” the world’s first nutritional functional food and beverage containing NMN nanoparticles. This technology disperses the NMN-encapsulated phospholipid carrier into nanoscale particles, resulting in excellent dispersion stability. This protects against acid degradation in gastric acid, making it easier to enter the small intestinal villi and improve absorption.
Improvements in wrapping materials
To enhance the efficacy of nutritional supplements, improvements in the packaging materials cannot be ignored.
Last December, MIT developed a polyphenol-based coating to protect anaerobic bacteria from oxygen. Made from trivalent iron ions and three polyphenols, the coating allows Escherichia coli and acidobacteroides (which play a vital role in intestinal digestion and have potential for treating colorectal cancer) to enter the intestine more easily, eliminating the tedious freeze-drying process and the risk of loss of viability.
British soft drinks company Britvic has developed microcapsules made from pea protein that can protect light-sensitive vitamins. With the use of these capsules, vitamin-fortified drinks can be safely bottled in transparent bottles.
In China , VegeGel capsules have developed a 3D plant gel encapsulation technology. A gastric acid-resistant plant starch capsule wraps flaxseed oil. Then, a process uses the antioxidant properties of the oil to encapsulate high-purity active ingredients in a second step, which effectively prevents gastric acid from destroying modern small molecule nutrients.
Summary
Snack-like and more engaging product formats, and personalized nutrition using online surveys, will be two key trends in the nutritional supplement industry this year. This means nutritional supplements will continue to incorporate more diverse ingredients and offer more refined and complex functionalities. New technologies, such as “dual-business technology,” will also see greater room for development.
