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Nutrition Business Journal released its Raw Material & Supply Report 2006 in June. The 586-page report provides updated information on markets for ingredients and raw materials used in dietary supplements, functional foods, and other specialty applications.1 It includes 1-page profiles of more than 210 suppliers. Sections of the report are devoted to specific supplement subcategories (i.e., vitamins, herbs/botanicals, minerals, sports nutrition, meal supplements, and specialty supplements) and various supplier strategies (i.e., value-added ingredients, ingredient branding, transitioning into food supply, condition-specific formulas, and vertical integration).2 Datasets include information on U.S. consumer sales and growth, wholesale sales and growth, raw material and ingredient sales and growth from 1995 to 2005 with forecasts to 2010, top supplier companies, business segment profiles of major ingredient categories, and raw material price trending diagrams.
According to NBJ’s statistics, the estimated retail sales levels compare to the estimated total sales of all supplement ingredients at the raw ingredient level at approximately an 8.8 to 1 ratio. The total retail value of herbs and botanical products was an estimated $4,410 billion in 2005, based on an estimated $386 million in sales of herbal raw materials - a ratio for this category of 11.4:1 (see Table 1 below).
“While the past five years have been dynamic and challenging, many nutrition industry raw material and ingredient supply executives believe the biggest changes in the supply landscape may be behind them,” writes the report's principal author, Grant Ferrier (e-mail, October 25, 2006). “Major price collapses seem increasingly unlikely, and recent developments in ingredients have just as likely raised prices rather than lowered them. Major competitive factors may not be completely ironed out, but at least the potential for surprise or a potential major global competitor emerging as China did in the past decade is unlikely as the industry matures.
“Suppliers today have a pretty clear picture of their role or even their responsibility: to drive the market with science-based products, clinical studies and consumer education and to make business easier and more successful for their manufacturing, marketing, direct sales and retailing partners further up the supply chain,” continued Ferrier. “Suppliers have had to evolve rapidly from being mere purveyors of raw materials into providers of proprietary, value-added ingredients-often with the burden of scientific proof of product efficacy falling principally to them.”
Table 1: U.S. Nutrition Industry: Consumer & Supply Sales: 2005
The report costs $2,995 and is delivered solely in electronic pdf format. To order the report, visit the Web address http://nbj.stores.yahoo.net/nbrawmainsur.html. The report’s 19-page Table of Contents may be viewed online, at no cost.
-Courtney Cavaliere
References
1. Nutrition Business Journal. NBJ’s Raw Material & Ingredient Supply Report 2006. San Diego, CA: New Hope Natural Media, Penton Media Inc; 2006.
2. NBJ’s Raw Material & Ingredient Supply Report 2006 page. Nutrition Business Journal Web site. Available at: http://nbj.stores.yahoo.net/nbrawmainsur.html. Accessed September 14, 2006.
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