Naturade says a higher quality product allows it to target natural supermarkets that do not accept rival brands containing artificial ingredients, giving it access to a new market.
"We see huge potential in health food stores, natural supermarkets and natural store-within-a-store sets in mass supermarkets," said Bill Stewart, Naturade CEO. "This launch provides the health food trade...with the opportunity to capture new customers with a serious sports nutrition line that meets their more rigid ingredient requirements."
Sports nutrition powders are thought to be worth around $1.6 billion, according to Nutrition Business Journal research.
The California-based firm currently sells its range of meal replacement products at major supermarket and club, health food, drug and mass merchandise stores throughout the US and Canada. The new SportPharma line will be aimed at the 60 million 'fitness-active' consumers identified by Copernican Associates, rather than the more narrow traditional market of body builders and elite athletes.
It will also appeal to Atkins fans, estimated to account for around 59 million men and women in the US. The line includes a whey protein shake, a meal replacement powder, a gainer with 56 grams of protein and a super premium isolate that contains pure whey protein isolate with no lactose. The products are sweetened with either fructose or sucralose but the whey protein shake and lactose free isolate powders contain only three and four net carbs respectively.
Naturade uses a proprietary process to triple-filter the protein in the new products. The process is derived from membrane technology first developed to create whey-based infant formulas and currently used to for medical foods. Triple filtering is said to retain the full spectrum of whey peptides and protein fractions, as well as eliminating the undesirable elements such as lactose or fat.
The SportPharma line will also carry a money-back guarantee for consumers unhappy about the taste.
"The purer the whey, the better the taste. We challenge the competition to a taste test. We're confident that consumers will choose our naturally sweetened products over other all-natural sports powders hands down," said Stewart.
Naturade also markets a complete line of protein boosters for low carbohydrate dieters and recently added a new line for low-carb dieters under the name Diet Lean.