Ingredient Trends Shaping Retail Supplement Innovation

At Natural Products Expo West, Asha Ramesh, CEO - Americas at Sabinsa Corporation, outlined several of the retail and consumer trends currently influencing ingredient innovation in supplements and functional foods. Speaking with Nutritional Outlook, she described how brands and retailers are increasingly seeking clean-label, science-backed ingredients that can support a range of growing health categories.

Among the biggest areas of demand, she identified women’s health, beauty-from-within, GLP-1 support, cognitive health, and longevity. In women’s health, Ramesh pointed to growing interest in ingredients such as botanicals and lactoferrin, with products being developed to support women across multiple life stages. In cognitive health, she said formulators are increasingly turning to functional mushrooms—particularly lion’s mane—as well as adaptogens such as ashwagandha, ginseng, and cordyceps to address stress, anxiety, energy, and overall brain support. She also noted rising attention to probiotics in this area, including Akkermansia muciniphila.

Ramesh said the growing visibility of GLP-1 medications has also influenced demand for weight management and metabolic support ingredients. She cited compounds such as berberine, curcumin, resveratrol, cinnamon, and black ginger as seeing elevated interest, particularly for applications related to metabolic health and abdominal fat support.

Longevity is another category gaining traction, she said, with nutrients such as vitamin D, vitamin B12, vitamin K2, and NAD+ precursors like NMN drawing attention for use in a range of products. She also highlighted continued momentum in functional foods and beverages, including fortified protein powders, powdered greens, and alternative protein sources such as fava bean and chickpea.

Throughout the discussion, Ramesh emphasized that clinical substantiation remains central to product development. She described Sabinsa’s approach as a long-term process of identifying promising phytonutrients, isolating active compounds, evaluating safety and toxicology, standardizing extraction methods, and investing heavily in clinical research to ensure consistent, high-quality ingredients.

A transcript of her conversation can be found below.

Nicholas Saraceno: Ladies and gentlemen, live from Expo West in Anaheim, I'm Nico Saraceno, editor, or senior editor, rather, of Nutritional Outlook. I'm joined today by Asha Ramesh. She is the CEO of the Americas with Sabinsa Corporation. Thank you for agreeing to do this, and a pleasure to meet you formally. We've been going back and forth via email, so this is very surreal.

Asha Ramesh: I'm happy to meet you finally, and I look forward to talking to you.

Saraceno: This is going to be a great dialog we have. We have a lot to get through, so let's just dive right in. The first thing I want to get into was that many supplements and functional foods are responding to demands for clean label, science-backed ingredients, things of that nature. From yours and Sabinsa’s perspective, I was curious, what kind of retail product trends are currently shaping ingredient innovations that are being developed for new product launches? What have you been noticing in the industry right now?

Ramesh: Thank you. Nico. At Sabinsa, we have been seeing a rise in nutraceutical trends, such as women's health, beauty inside out, or beauty from within, GLP-1 support ingredients, and cognitive support, as well as longevity supporting ingredients, so retailers and brands look for clinically substantiated ingredients to be incorporated in formulations addressing these health conditions.

For example, in women's health, we are seeing a rising trend in using botanicals such as asparagus residues, lactoferrin. At Sabinsa, we have ingredients to address every stage of a woman's life, and when it comes to cognitive support, we are seeing a rising trend in the usage of functional mushrooms—Lion's mane in particular—and then adaptogens, like ashwagandha, ginseng, and even Cordyceps, to address issues of stress, anxiety and energy. There are also certain probiotics which are being used in this category, especially Akkermansia muciniphila, I think that's the one.

Similarly, ever since there has been a number of GLP-1 medications, people look for weight management and metabolic support, kind of ingredients and the likes of berberine, curcumin, resveratrol, as well as cinnamon. These are finding heavy users and demand, and also products like black ginger, which addresses abdominal fat. These are the kind of ingredients that have a lot of rising demand. One more area that we are seeing increased interest in is longevity support nutrients. For example, high quality vitamin D, B12, K2, and NAD+ precursors like NMN, these are finding a wide range of applications, and also the functional foods and beverages category, where fortified protein powders, as well as powdered greens.

These are the kind of ingredients that are gaining a lot of traction, especially novel sources of proteins, like fava bean as well as chickpeas. In all these areas, people are looking for clinically substantiated ingredients. What happens at Sabinsa is we take many years to identify phytonutrients which have a benefit for a health condition based on years of studies, literature, and text. What we do is we identify a phytonutrient, and then we take a long time to study and isolate the active that is responsible for the efficacious action. We mainly focus on establishing the safety and toxicological profile of that ingredient, and then we make sure that we restrict ourselves to the highest quality solvents or supercritical fluid extraction, to make sure that this extract—or this active from the extract—is consistently done from batch to batch, and then we heavily invest in clinical data.