Speaking at the IPA World Congress + Probiota, Stene, who leads Euromonitor’s consumer health research program, presented data which showed that probiotic supplements are rising at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.5%, faster than consumer health and dietary supplements overall.
This is in a challenging and stagnant global market, with GDP growth and inflation both sitting at 3% last year, effectively canceling each other out.
Multi-benefit products are performing particularly well, Stene added, particularly those which offer gut health, immunity and beauty benefits, which he referred to as the ‘triple stack’.
“We’re seeing quite a major movement in priorities of spend,” Stene told delegates. “The experience economy is still doing well. We want to look good, and we’re willing to spend money on looking good.”
Biotic health claims and ingredient movements
Using SKU-level web scraping of 1.6 million products worldwide, Stene analyzed how biotics are positioned in the dietary supplement market.
The term ‘probiotic’ is used on roughly 10% of dietary supplement products in North America and 9% of products in Australasia. This drops to around 5% in Europe, perhaps reflecting regulatory hurdles, with the term ‘probiotic’ considered to be an unauthorized health claim in the European Union.
Euromonitor’s Nick Stene says beauty and the skin health are among the fastest growing claims appearing on biotic products. (© William Reed)
Nevertheless, Stene said probiotics are increasingly being used as the ‘hero ingredient’ in dietary supplements, yet they are rising even faster as a support mechanism.
Prebiotics and postbiotics, however, nearly always serve a support role and are mentioned on far fewer supplement products. The term ‘prebiotic’ features on fewer than 2% of dietary supplements worldwide and ‘postbiotic’ features on fewer than 0.2% of products. Even so, both prebiotics and postbiotics have a rising presence in most global markets.
“We’ve got this pattern of constant growth, rapid growth, but this is all at a very low level,” he said. “If I look at the pattern, this is more of a support message on SKUs than the hero message for the SKU.”
Digestive and immunity benefits are the most common claims made on probiotic products, appearing on nearly all biotic SKUs, with a small number of products making bone, joint and liver health claims.
“If I look at memory and cognition, it’s got a strong role,” Stene added. “It’s particularly rising right now on probiotics in Western Europe. But I think the strongest one I’m seeing in terms of growth is the beauty and the skin health area. It’s on probiotics, but it’s also rising very rapidly within prebiotic and postbiotic messaging.”
Stene highlighted the success of the now global supplement brand Bloom, which uses a ‘triple stack’ strategy focused on the gut health, immunity and beauty benefits of its probiotic products. The brand also provides species and strain specific messaging, a strategy which helps boost brand credibility.
Credibility is becoming increasingly important to consumers, Stene added, with around 1 in 5 new stock keeping units (SKUs) now featuring third-party certification—roughly double what it was when tracking began pre-COVID.
AI as a tool for health advice and compliance
Finally, Stene identified AI as a frontier for both market growth and regulatory oversight. He noted that while AI is frequently being used for personalized health advice—including among older demographics—it is also being used by regulators to monitor compliance.
Noting that regulators are adopting the same AI technology used for market analysis to monitor health claims, Stene issued a stark warning to finished product brands.
“[Regulators] are going to have visibility over everything within a fairly short space of time,” he said. “Be warned, this is going to get more sophisticated. It’s going to get better as a control mechanism.”
