The sports nutrition market is as active as its end users are. This somewhat-hard-to-define market encompasses some of the natural products industry's biggest growth areas, which helps fuel sports nutrition's market game plan. Due to mainstream exposure from various pro and amateur sporting leagues, the sports nutrition segment rides marketing waves and slaloms past various regulatory situations on its journey, separating the weak products from the strong products over time.
Globally, sports nutrition was a $27.2 billion market in 2007, according BCC Research, which estimated product sales to reach $31.2 billion in 2008 and $91.8 by 2013, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24.1 percent. Breaking the market into categories by delivery form, BCC tagged beverages as the high growth-rate category (25.6 percent through 2013), with foods (10.0 percent) and supplements (4.0 percent) rounding out the mix.
This breakdown is also reflected in the newest "Sports Nutrition and Weight-Loss Report" (2009) from Nutrition Business Journal (NBJ), which places the U.S. sports nutrition market value at a total $19.6 billion, with sports and energy drinks comprising the majority, 51 percent, and sports and weight-loss supplements claiming 13 and 8 percent, respectively.
One look at some of the big public companies with key sports nutrition divisions and brands lends proof to the strong sales growth in this category. Global nutritional sales in Abbott's nutrition division, which includes the popular EAS brand sports supplements, increased 11.0 percent in 2008?, up more than 15 percent internationally and nearly 7 percent in the United States. USANA, which markets heavily to the sports nutrition market, has logged six consecutive years of record sales, including its recently closed fiscal 2008. Similarly, Nu Skin Enterprises, which owns the Pharmanex brand supplements including products marketed to sports nutrition consumers, also posted record revenues for 2008; and Herbalife has pulled together a string of consecutive double-digit growth quarters and has many successful ventures and partnerships in the sporting world, including professional soccer teams and events in volleyball, cycling, running and other competitive sports.
Qualifying the market, BCC reported the United States is the largest consumer market for sports nutrition products, with taste, price, variety and brand trust as primary drivers of sales. The firm further noted increased demand for sports nutrition products from mainstream consumers is also highlighting convenience and taste as the big growth drivers.