Now that we are approaching the end of 2016, let's take a look at the trends that drove this segment over the past 12 months.

The sports nutrition market had another active year, including regulatory and legal issues as well as ingredient and product innovations.

Over the course of 2016, the sports nutrition consumer base continued to expand into active consumers interested in protein, energy and performance ingredients. In response, companies rethought formulas, flavors and delivery technologies. Unfortunately, the growing pains for some companies meant restructuring to streamline operations, SKUs and workforce, while for other companies, merging with strong partners created new opportunities. Regulatory and legal issues stayed focused mostly on adulteration with pharmaceutical ingredients or compounds that either face challenges to meeting the statutory definition of dietary ingredient or did not file necessary new dietary ingredient (NDI) or GRAS notifications.

All in all, 2016 was a year of continued growth for an industry that is now well beyond the core bodybuilding and world class athlete following. Many trends in sports nutrition, both on the product and the supply side, appear tied in some way to this expansion, which is not just in the demographic in established markets, such as the United States, but also to rising interest resulting in emerging markets in less-established regions.