NutraIngredients-USA's 6th Sports & Active Nutrition Summit attracted over 250 delegates to sunny San Diego for three days of content and networking.
Content sessions covered the state of the market from multiple angles, the modern sports nutrition consumer, women’s health, disruptive tech, an all-star innovative ingredients panel, the microbiome, recovery & adaptation, regulatory developments, a leadership panel, and much more!
NutraIngredients-USA's 6th Sports & Active Nutrition Summit attracted over 250 delegates to sunny San Diego for three days of content and networking.
Content sessions covered the state of the market from multiple angles, the modern sports nutrition consumer, women’s health, disruptive tech, an all-star innovative ingredients panel, the microbiome, recovery and adaptation, regulatory developments, a leadership panel and much more!
SANS 2024 kicked off with Scott Dicker, market insights director for SPINS, telling attendees that sales of performance nutrition products are growing 28% year-on-year.
Among the high performers: Creatine, with SPINS reporting 52% YoY sales volume growth.
Expanding our view of the market, Laurie Demeritt, CEO of the Hartman Group, explored the ways in which activity and nutrition are viewed by consumers, especially as they relate to physical, mental/emotional and social health. For example, Gen Z consumers are known for being more critical and accusing companies of not telling the truth, she said.
“A way to resonate with them is to have an authentic narrative and to be knowledgeable,” Demeritt said. “Just saying all those buzz words is probably not going to fly with that group the same way it may have with the millennials.”
Crafting an appropriate message about supplements is not the only way to reach this demographic. Demeritt noted that Gen Z consumers like to quantify their health and compare those metrics with others and will gravitate to companies that provide tools to accomplish that. This generation embraces Nutrigenomics, she said.
Todd Pauli, founder and publisher of Move Nutrition Network, shared findings from a recent survey of 500 sports and active nutrition practitioners (sports dietitians, sports nutritionists and trainers) about where they get their nutrition information and how often they pass it on to clients.
“The results show there is a wide range of recommendations," he said. "All three groups of practitioners we looked at are regularly recommending both functional foods and supplements, with gut/digestion and cognitive health appearing near the top of most participants’ recommendations."
Kenneth Huntly, vice president of merchandising/DNN-sports nutrition at GNC (second from right), joined Demeritt, Dicker, Pauli and NutraIngredients-USA's Danielle Masterson for a vibrant and wide-ranging panel discussion about the evolving market and the evolving consumer.
The experts agreed that in a time when inflation is high, brands should be prepared to offer products that meet varying price points. Huntly said he has noticed that more and more consumers who have historically been able to afford health and wellness brands now need options to service them under financial constraints.
“As we’ve seen inflation kind of go a little crazy in this industry in particular, people are making the decisions to trade down or at least laterally into the things that are clearly the most important,” he said. “It's not even just about inflation but making sure that we're broadening the base of people that can afford to get into this space.”
Attendees also quizzed the panel on the rise of creatine and how different consumer groups are being drawn to the product.
“Creatine has been on a tear for the last three, four years in particular,” said GNC's Kenneth Huntly (second from right), adding that women are now large consumers of the supplement. “People are starting to understand a little bit more about creatine’s possibilities on cognition and brain health.”
He added that as more consumers dramatically lose weight on newly released pharmaceuticals, they are turning to creatine for its ability to preserve lean muscle mass.
Dr. Stephen Bailey, senior lecturer in sport and exercise nutrition at Loughborough University in the UK, described findings from cell, animal and human clinical trials on the potential benefits of Tetraselmis chuii (TetraSOD) supplementation to improve antioxidant responses in human skeletal muscle and physiological responses during exercise.
One of the key takeaways: Dietary TetraSOD supplementation increases maximum oxygen uptake (VO2max), which is an important predictor of endurance exercise performance in healthy adults, said Dr. Bailey.
Day 1 ended with a heavyweight panel discussion around the current U.S. regulatory landscape for sports nutrition products, including efforts at the state level to restrict access to muscle building supplements, FTC’s Notice of Penalty Offenses Concerning Substantiation of Product Claims and industry petitions in response, implications of the FDA’s reorganization, other petitions with significant implications for sports and active nutrition, and much more.
The panel featured (left to right):
Dr. Rob Wildman, head coach at TYM Athletic Performance and chair of the American Herbal Products Association's Sports Nutrition Committee;
Eva Hurt, vice president of North America scientific and regulatory affairs at The Coca-Cola Company;
Robert Marriott, JD, director of regulatory affairs at the American Herbal Products Association;
Michael DiMaggio, chief legal officer and general counsel at Nutrabolt,
Matthew Orr, partner at Amin Talati Wasserman LLP
The session was chaired by NutraIngredients-USA's Stephen Daniells (right).
Michael DiMaggio, chief legal officer and general counsel at Nutrabolt, said the industry needs to do more to educate brands, retailers and consumers about the threats posed by state-led efforts to restrict the sale of muscle building and/or weight management supplements to people under the age of 18.
“We need a cohesive message, we need to work together, we need to prevent any additional legislation of this kind, and we need to do whatever we can in New York to get the bill repealed and get them to see the unintended implications,” DiMaggio told us.
To watch a video interview with DiMaggio, please click HERE.
Day 2 of the Sports & Active Nutrition Summit started with an early morning 5K Run or Walk hosted by PLT Health Solutions.
The content program for Day 2 started with a session dedicated to women's health and featured a fireside chat between Danielle Masterson (left) and Helene Guillaume, founder and CEO of Wild.AI, which explored how Wild.AI applies the science of female physiology to active women to help them train, recover and supplement based on their cycle.
Dr. Katie Hirsch, assistant professor at the University of South Carolina, was next up with a powerhouse presentation on the current state of the science for active women.
“Now is the time to invest in active women,” Dr. Hirsch told attendees.
Dawna Salter-Farfan, PhD, RD, senior manager of clinical research at PLT, discussed the science behind PLT Health Solution's new Strengthera Muscle Maintenance + Vitality formula, a blend of extracts from Mangifera indica tree bark and Sphaeranthus indicus flower to help aging adults maintain muscle health and physical function.
“The truth of the matter is that women do drop out significantly from activity and fitness as they age,” she said, listing barriers to continued fitness including a decreasing sense of physicality, fear of risk of injury, aching joints and muscles, and muscle loss coupled with weight gain.
“Clearly, as we age, the deck becomes stacked against us, so we have to be really mindful to try to do what we can to tip that balance back towards effective synthesis,” Dr. Salter-Farfan said, noting that proper diet and resistance exercise are crucial but that dietary supplements like Strengthera also have a role to play.
Dr. Hirsch then joined Dr. Susan Hazels Mitmesser, chief science officer at Pharmavite (second from right) and Rachel Jones, senior vice president, chief product innovation and science officer at GNC (right) for a panel discussion moderated by Danielle Masterson (left).
The experts discussed the science, the market and the boundless opportunity for high-quality nutrition products for active women of all ages.
The women's health session was followed by presentations focused on disruptive tech, including nutrigenomics to A.I. for ingredient innovation.
Ahmed El-Sohemy, chief science officer at Toronto-based Nutrigenomix, explained that one of the goals of research in this area is to try to figure out how we can use genetic testing to understand why some people respond differently from others to the same foods, beverages and supplements that they consume.
Nutrigenomix offers consumers a report of 77 key genes, said Dr. El-Sohemy. Nutrients can turn certain genes on and off. Nutrients or bioactive substances can cause epigenetic changes in those genes that alter the expression and biological function.
“We're trying to understand how variations in genes affect the way we respond to diet,” Dr. El-Sohemy said. “Genes code for proteins and affect the absorption, the distribution, the cellular uptake and the elimination of virtually everything that we ingest. I think it's absolutely critical that we take genetics into account when we're studying the effects of nutrition on any outcome, not just athletic performance, but on cardiovascular outcomes and other health outcomes.”
Attendees then heard from Swati Kalgaonkar, director of medical, scientific and regulatory affairs at Brightseed, about the untapped opportunity offered by phytonutrients.
“Bioactives are all around us, and yet all of the bioactives that we know today, all of the bioactives that we consume today, study today, investigate today, barely, again, scratch the surface of the list of bioactives that are actually out there,” she said.
That’s where Brightseed’s Forager AI platform comes into play. The technology helps enable high throughput identification, not only helping to identify an index of plant sources but analysis as well. It’s also fed with the largest database of plant compounds, Kalgaonkar said.
The third component of the AI, and the most important, she added, is providing a curated model of human health down to mechanism of actions and targeted receptors.
“The Brightseed AI platform can not only help identify that target receptor but also identify the plant bioactives that may act as agonists to help rescue gut permeability or to help rescue gut restoration, rather,” she said. “And then the ingredient discovery timeline can be significantly shortened with the use of AI.”
The afternoon sessions started with an in-depth look at the potential for microbiome modulation to impact athletic performance and recovery and featured a presentation by Dr. Alex Mohr, director of microbiomics at Theriome (second from right), about the emerging gut-muscle axis, and Carolina Barsa, co-founder and chief innovation and growth officer at Fitbiomics, on the company's probiotic Veillonella strain, a beneficial microbe that naturally eats lactic acid and converts it into short chain fatty acids to fight fatigue and promote endurance.
Dr. Mohr and Ms. Barsa then joined a panel discussion featuring Dr. Ralf Jäger, managing member at Increnovo (left) and moderated by NutraIngredients-USA's Stephen Daniells, on the wider potential of microbiome modulation in athletic populations, including improved immune health, protein utilization and the emerging field of postbiotics.
Dr. Susan Kleiner, founder and owner of High Performance Nutrition, chaired a discussion with Sam Bartlett, founder and CEO of Curtis Bartlett Fitness Center (right) and Geoff Palmer, founder and CEO of Clean Machine (left), about the potential of ahiflower oil in the sports and active nutrition sector.
Among the topics discussed were how ahiflower’s high SDA content is efficiently converted to EPA to effectively reduce exercise-based inflammation and support overall health.
Day 2 finished with an all-star panel of formulators on the topic of innovative ingredients.
The panel featured Raza Bashir, vice president of scientific affairs and product innovation at Iovate Health Sciences International (left); Rachel Jones, senior VP, chief product innovation and science officer at GNC; Joey Savage, chief science officer at Glaxon (center) and Dr. Robert Wildman, head coach of TYM Athletic Performance (right, next to NutraIngredients-USA's Danielle Masterson).
GNC's Jones said: "We are really excited about the innovation in areas like peptides or even botanicals where you're findings solutions through the more advanced discovery technologies that could at a very very low dose have very positive effects on muscle performance and muscle mass, like Nuritas has the PeptiStrong peptides. There are some dileucine peptides that we find very interesting and even some of these botanical solutions—that I think PLT Health Solutions referenced a few—that at a very very small dose, you can really some benefits."
Iovate's Raza Bashir (left) commented on the potential for probiotics that do things outside of gut health and immunity that are specifically targeted for various conditions.
"There are the new psychobiotics that have to do with the gut-brain axis," he said. Immunity is something that is obviously naturally in the wheelhouse of the microbiome.
"Having these kinds of options within our traditional categories of sports nutrition are really compelling in trying to imagine a world in where you are going to buy a BCAA product, there are going to be probiotics in there that has something to do with increasing your amino acid utilization, having more of these synbiotic-kind of products that in a sense if that microbe wants to colonize your gut, your going to be benefitting from that pretty for the rest of your days or until you get a cold and have to take a whole bunch of antibiotics."
Tym's Dr. Rob Wildman added: "Lactoferrin, which is in what I consider to be mother nature's most potent, perfect food—milk. Lactoferrin can be partially digested down to peptides that then interact with the microbiome. I mean this is just incredible stuff, it's just expanding out, and we're in a great spot to fully embrace peptides as we're looking at all of these other areas as well."
After a fun social evening on Day 2, the third and final day of the Sports & Active Nutrition Summit aptly started with a session dedicated to recovery, and featured a presentation about the emerging science around exogenous ketones in this area.
For Dr. Mark Evans, now a nutrition consultant with Glanbia Performance Nutrition, the effect of exogenous ketones on exercise metabolism, physical and cognitive performance was the focus of his PhD at Dublin City University.
While early research into exogenous ketones focused on acute performance gains, the science in recent years has shifted more towards recovery, said Dr Evans.
“Now, the larger body of evidence is showing that maybe they don’t act as an acute performance tool, but there may be some scope as a recovery tool post-exercise,” Dr. Evans said.
To watch an interview with Dr. Evans, please click HERE.
Next up was Dr. Shiloah Anna-Sara Kviatkovsky, assistant professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, who discussed results from a human clinical trial of the potential benefits of collagen peptide supplementation for pain, improved function and enhanced connective tissue turnover.
Collagen peptide supplements have shown to be efficacious in enhancing recovery from injury and improving pain, especially when combined with rehabilitative exercise programs, she told attendees.
The recovery session finished with a panel featuring Dr Evans (left), Florencia Moreno Torres, Global Business Development Manager Health & Nutrition, Rousselot (second from left), Dr. Susan M. Kleiner, Founder and Owner, High Performance Nutrition (center), Joel Totoro, RD, Director of Sports Science, Thorne HealthTech, and Dr. Chris Oswald, Head of Medical Affairs - Atrium Professional Brands, Nestle Health Science.
The experts discussed the four Rs for recovery: Rehydration; Refuel; Repair; and Rest, and how brands can present a holistic approach to recovery.
The Sports & Active Nutrition Summit also celebrated its three new Start-Up Stars, innovative early-stage companies that are disrupting the sector.
This year's Stars were:
Glaxon, represented by Joey Savage, chief science officer (left),
Helaina, represented by Cassie Lewis, head of marketing (center), and
Apex Compliance, represented by Asa Waldstein, principal (right)
The Start-Up Stars were joined on-stage by NutraIngredients-USA's Danielle Masterson (left), Claudia Adrien (second from left), Asia Sherman (second from right) and Stephen Daniells (right) for the trophy presentation.
To close out the event, Dan Lourenço, founder and CEO of Ghost Lifestyle, joined Stephen Daniells for a candid conversation about the brand's meteoric rise, sharing his insights on how Ghost disrupted the sports nutrition and active lifestyle space and the lessons he's learned over the years.
In less than a decade, Ghost Lifestyle has skyrocketed from a disruptive breakthrough brand to one of the biggest names in sports and active nutrition, esports and energy beverages. Lourenço also discussed the brand's recent entry into the booming hydration space.
Lourenço joined Diana Morgan, vice president of global regulatory and government affairs for Nutrabolt; Bryan Morin, sports brand manager at NOW Sports, and Glaxon's Joey Savage for a leadership panel that looked back over the previous three days of the Sports & Active Nutrition Summit and discussed some of the big opportunities and challenges facing the industry over the next 12 months.
NutraIngredients-USA's Sports & Active Nutrition Summit will return to San Diego, Feb. 19-21, 2025.
