It’s been an interesting summer for the dietary supplements industry, and we’re taking a look back at some of the lessons from the summer to keep front of mind as we head into the busy fall period.
Sales of herbal dietary supplements with turmeric/curcumin as the primary ingredient grew by 26.2% in 2013 to take the top spot in the natural channel, says a new report published in the current issue of the American Botanical Council’s HerbalGram.
Last year, sales of vitamins and dietary supplements in Brazil increased by 9%, reaching R$3.2 billion ($1.4 billion), as a growing cohort of younger consumers seek a healthy lifestyle and take a more preventive approach to wellness, according to a report...
Pharmaceutical-reliant public healthcare systems are unsustainably expensive and governments around the world know it, but can medical foods go part way to breaching the gap and delivering real savings? Panellists at a recent NutraIngredients-hosted debate...
A continued move toward plant proteins will be one of the major trends of the sports nutrition marketplace in the coming 12 months, according to market watcher Tom Vierhile, innovation insights director of the market intelligence firm Datamonitor.
Russia has amended its ‘total embargo’ on western food imports to exclude dietary supplements, vitamin and mineral mixes, protein concentrates and dietary fibers.
Reaction to FDA's proposed Nutrition Facts updates
Although it generally supports the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) proposed Nutrition and Supplement Facts label changes, the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) urged the agency to adopt the Digestible Indispensable Amino Acid Score (DIAAS)...
Z Trim Holdings, an Illinois-based producer of functional ingredients derived from corn fiber and other grain byproducts, has launched its BioFiber Gum (BFG) for food, supplement and industrial applications. BFG is said to have both a suite of attractive...
Humanetics Corp. has sold its longtime dietary supplement ingredient, 7-Keto, to InterHealth Nutraceuticals as part of a strategic refocus of the company.
Pure Via labels will be amended, but 'natural' claim will stay
10 months after Cargill agreed to settle a class action lawsuit alleging it was misleading shoppers by marketing consumer products under the Truvia brand as ‘natural’, the firms behind rival stevia brand Pure Via have agreed to settle a similar lawsuit.
CannaVest, a Las Vegas-based company that is investing in the development of foods and supplements from hemp, announced a thin gain from operations in its second quarter of 2014 buoyed by a large paper transaction involving a subsidiary that boosted the...
Thera Innovations, a Canadian importer of dietary supplement ingreidients, has anounced a new supply deal for more bioavailable forms of curcumin and quercitin. The ingredients, branded as Theracumin and EMIQ, and are souced from Theravalues Corporation,...
Youngevity International, a multilevel marketer of nutritional supplements as well as a bulk coffee roaster, reported big increases in net revenue and gross profit in its second quarter of 2014, driven mostly by organic growth aided by acquisitions.
FitLife Brands, maker of nutritional supplements sold under several brand names, has bucked the headwinds that have afflicted the dietary supplement sector in recent quarters, notching an 18% rise in revenue in its second quarter 2014 results. The company...
Rock Creek Pharmaceuticals, formerly doing business as Star Scientific, has suspended the sale of its Anatabloc antioxidant dietary supplement based on anatabine, a molecule found in cauliflower and other foods. The company said it is attempting to clear...
Settlement offers injunctive, but not monetary, relief (Coke required to amend labels but consumers won't get any money)
Coca-Cola has agreed to settle a series of 'copycat' lawsuits accusing it of deceptively marketing Vitaminwater. But the lawsuit that inspired them all - filed by the Center for Science in the Public Interest in 2009 - is still pending, as the...
Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage, a regional health food store chain based in Colorado, reported strong results in its third quarter of fiscal 2014 that included expanding the company’s footprint.
After taking a hit due to recent negative press and a consumer shift toward more use of functional food and beverages, the US nutritional supplements market will see growth return to just over 6% per year through 2018, when sales will reach $16.4 billion,...
Despite recent negative publicity surrounding omega-3s, a new survey has found that practitioners who commonly recommend supplements to their patients still strongly support the use of omega-3s.
Omega Protein Corporation reported a strong second quarter 2014 with revenue up 72% year-over-year. The rise was mostly attributable to higher sales of fish oil and fish meal into the animal feed markets.
Fortification has made a large contribution to nutrient intakes and adequacy for many, but not all, micronutrients in US children and adolescents’ diets, without leading to excessive intakes for most vitamins and minerals, according to research published...
BioFilm Ltd., a Scottish manufacturer of thin dissolving films, is expanding its offerings into the US, believing that it has the production and formulation capability to transform what has been a fairly quiescent market, the company’s North American...
Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. posted increased sales in the second quarter of its 2014 fiscal year, in line with analysts’ expectations. The company fell slightly short of earnings expectations as the company dealt with softness that has affected the supplement...
Nutraceutical International Corporation returned to its record of strong financial performance fueled by acquisitions with the release of its third quarter 2014 results. The company notched a 9.5% year-over-year net sales increase. This comes after...
The FDA’s overhaul of the Nutrition Facts panel misses a public health opportunity by prohibiting firms from evening highlighting long chain omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA on the panel on a voluntary basis, says GOED, the Global Organization for EPA...
5-Hour Energy has hit back at a sports science researcher who says there is ‘chasm’ between the claims made by America’s top-selling energy shot and the scientific evidence for its effectiveness.
The web of Chinese regulations regarding dietary ingredient import and export reached out to ensnare Innophos, a company that derives a portion of its revenue from selling phosphates and other mineral ingredients for dietary supplements and functional...
Usana Health Sciences reported flat net sales in the second quarter of its 2014 fiscal year. Issues in China caused the company to miss analysts’ estimates for sales and earnings, and the company’s share price took a plunge as a result.
Herbalife's share price dropped sharply yesterday as the company reported second quarter earnings that missed analysts’ estimates. Shares dropped 11% almost immediately on the news and declined further in early trading today, with a share price...
The past year has been a tough one for the sales of dietary supplements, and retailing giant GNC is not immune to those trends. In the company’s second quarter 2014 earnings GNC reported declines in both overall revenue and net income year-over-year.
Bad news has acquired a long shelf life in the age of the Internet. Companies that are involved in regulatory actions, such as receiving FDA warning letters, need to develop a strategy to present their image going forward because the record of the warning...
We have become a nation of fitness and nutrition go-getters, as evidenced by the skyrocketing number of fitness and nutrition apps and the mainstreaming of the sports nutrition market.
US neurotech startup Think Drinks says it plans to conduct high-calibre peer-reviewed study to prove the benefits of what it claims is the world’s ‘first functional nootropic’ brain beverage.
The United Natural Products Alliance has welcomed KGK Synergize and PerkinElmer as new science and technology services members, while Natural Partners joins as an executive member.
Encapsula NanoSciences has launched a nutraceutical product using its liposomal encapsulation techniques that will enhance bioavailability without overpromising on efficacy, said CEO Zahra Mirafzali, PhD.
Activist investor William Ackman’s much publicized webinar on Herbalife, which he characterized as a ‘death blow’ to the company, turned out to be anything but. The company’s share price rose 25% yesterday, much of that rise coming during Ackman’s exhaustive...
Multilevel marketing giant Herbalife launched a preemptive strike of sorts against the campaign waged by activist investor Bill Ackman, who has taken a short position on the company valued at as much as $1 billion.
Proposals don't consider a product's overall nutritional value, says professor
FDA proposals to overhaul the Nutrition Facts panel on food labels are “strong” and “likely to make an important contribution”, says former FDA commissioner David Kessler, M.D. “But I believe they don't go far enough.”
The GRAS process as it stands in the United States is vulnerable to criticism based on possible conflicts of interest and low-quality safety work, said Claire Kruger, PhD, president of Spherix Consulting, a division of ChromaDex.
The Vitamin Shoppe announced this week that it plans to have all of the labels on products sold in its stores to be submitted to the National Institutes of Health Dietary Supplement Label Database. The move was welcomed by Steve Mister, president and...
An article published this week by the American Botanical Council lays out the story underlying a German court’s recent decision to lift a ban on kava, including the ways in which the legal goalposts moved around during the process. Kava’s reinstatement,...
Functional foods and beverages are the thin edge of the innovation wedge and are growing by leaps and bounds. Panelists in a recent online forum hosted by NutraIngredients-USA laid out the trends in this booming sector.
Kroger’s purchase of online retailing giant Vitacost.com is part of ongoing retailing consolidation in the dietary supplements and natural foods business. But rather than viewing this process with alarm, as is often the case with smaller brick-and-mortar...
Plandai Biotechnology Inc. will not be required to apply to the US Food and Drug Administration for New Dietary Ingredient status in order to market and sell its Phytofare Catechin Complex as a dietary supplement, enabling the firm to start marketing...
The Kroger Co. has acquired all outstanding shares of Vitacost.com for approximately $280 million, with the grocery giant seeing Vitacost.com’s healthy living products as complementary to it fast-growing natural foods business.
Astaxanthin has been a red-hot ingredient in the United States for several years and demand is ramping up worldwide. To meet that demand in the Japanese market, Heliae, an algae technology company based in Gilbert, AZ, is teaming up with Sincere Corporation...
The concept of “energy” is a multifaceted one, to be sure: it can come in bursts or slowly; via beverages, shots, biscuits or bars; with appeal that spans sports nutrition, weight management and even kids.
The Council for Responsible Nutrition has teamed with an international dietary supplement trade group to disseminate science-based information about the safety of supplements in an effort to help inform discussions about the harmonization of regulations...
