3 Insights on the Outlook of Vitamins, Minerals, & Supplements

We’re always looking for ways to discover more about the categories we work with, and one of the ways we do that is by getting people in the industry together to listen, share, and benchmark opportunities and challenges.

Over the next year, Netrush will be holding a series of monthly roundtables to discuss the intersection of CPG, e-commerce, and consumer trends.

This month’s roundtable discussion was on the outlook of the VMS category. Our guest speaker — SPINS Sales Director Sara Benjamin — talked about health trends moving into 2021, including outlooks on immunity, performance, and cognitive-health related products.

Here are some of the main takeaways. 

Immunity products now make up 50% of the market

This probably won’t come as a surprise, but the outbreak of COVID-19 sparked an incredible uptick in immunity-related product sales. The steepest spike happened back in March when the pandemic really started to gain momentum in the US.

According to SPINS data, Elderberry products experienced the greatest change with a 400% year-over-year increase in sales. Vitamin c, zinc, and echinacea also experienced significant sales growth in March, and year-over-year growth has remained strong up until this point. This positive year-over-year sales trend will likely continue until a COVID-19 vaccine has been widely adopted, presumably sometime in 2021. 

Cognitive health products are booming

A survey by the American Psychological Association recently found that 78% of participants are experiencing significant stress due to the pandemic, so it makes sense that consumers are paying more attention to their brain health. According to SPINS data, cognitive health sales have risen 43% over the last 52 weeks and 82% over the last 12 weeks.

Multivitamins and women’s multivitamins were some of the cognitive-health related products to experience the most sales growth.

Omega-rich foods, which are viewed as supporters of cognitive health, have also been on the rise. Seafood and grass-fed meat sales have both risen over 20% over the last 52 weeks. 

Performance supplements are expected to rise in the second half of next year

2020 hasn’t been the best year for gyms. Most gyms have had to run at restricted capacity and have been forced to shut down for several week periods at a time. This in turn has had a negative effect on the performance supplements category — protein powders, pre-workout products, and so on.

The outlook of performance supplements seems to be tied to the effectiveness and acceptance of the vaccine. If the vaccine is widely accepted and everything goes well, then gyms will be able to open back up and performance supplement sales will increase.

According to Sara Benjamin from SPINS, this will probably happen in the second half of next year, but there are still many factors that could affect this outcome, and overall, the outlook is still uncertain. 

Learn more about our CPG services & insights

Netrush works with brands across a multitude of CPG categories to help them succeed in e-commerce. If you’d like to learn more about our services and insights, get in touch with us by visiting our Contact Page.