Nature’s Way said learnings from social media informed new line of herbal powders
The new line consists of three products: standardized Turmeric Powder, Beet (Beta vulgaris) Root Powder and Activated Coconut Charcoal Powder. The powders are designed to quickly dissolve in any beverage, which the company says makes it easy to absorb the wellness benefits of turmeric, which the company positions as a joint health ingredient, beet root for sustained energy or activated coconut charcoal for internal cleansing. The new powders are now available at select grocery and natural food retailers nationwide.
Using capsules in novel fashion
The base ingredients are ones that are already in the Nature’s Way stable in the form of encapsulated products. Priya Backos, associate brand manager for Nature’s Way, said that by combing through social media postings, the company became aware that a certain subset of its consumers were buying capsules, because that’s what the company made available, but they weren’t using the products that way.
“We found by looking through product reviews on social media that consumers were starting to change the way they looked at these products. We found they were actually taking the capsules and opening them up to put them into their beverages,” Backos told NutraIngredients-USA.
So rather than continue to unwittingly force some consumers to use capsules as a cumbersome delivery mode for certain powders, the company chose to meet them where they are, Backos said.
“We said, if this is the form you are looking for, we can deliver on that,” she said.
Paul Jarrett is CEO of BuluBox, a supplement sampling and data mining company based in Lincoln, NE. BuluBox sends monthly boxes out to subscribers so that they can sample supplements, functional foods and personal care items before making the investment of buying a monthly supply or more. Jarrett recently told NutraIngredients-USA that he has observed a big move away from capsules and tablets toward more functional food-type delivery modes.
“In our weight management boxes, for example, five years ago it was all pills and powders. Now 80% of the boxes are functional food type delivery vehicles,” Jarrett said.
Pills will still rule roost
Backos wasn’t willing to go as far in characterizing this as a wholesale shift in consumers’ choice of delivery modes. The new powder line is more of a niche, accretive application, she said, and viewed the risk of cannibalizing existing product lines as low. Backos said encapsulated products still resonate with informed consumers because of the standardized, reliable dosages. Hitting those intake targets with food is much more difficult. For example, how much curry would you need to eat to equal the curcumin dosage you’d get from a capsule?
“The vast majority of consumers are still taking their supplements in pill form. But people really love the idea of food being the original medicine. They are looking for how they can harness that idea using standardized ingredients that are in the truly efficacious form. That’s what our powder products can do for them. I think, though, that the majority of consumers will always default toward a pill or a capsule,” she said.
Paul Jarrett, CEO of BuluBox, is a panelist in our upcoming webinar
From 3D printing to customization, personalization, novel delivery techniques, and new ingredients with compelling science, there is far more going on in the dietary supplementsspace than many people appreciate.
NutraIngredients-USA brings together leaders from the bleeding edge of innovation in dietary supplements to share their insights on how advances in all of these areas are driving the next generation of dietary supplement products. Join us on January 30 at 11:30 AM Eastern. Click HERE to register.
