What you need to know
Used by one in four people, sports nutrition food/drink enjoys surprisingly widespread use despite its specific function as supporting sports and fitness. Sales through the leading grocers and chemists jumped 14% year on year in 2015, emphasising the buoyancy of the market. This reflects the market’s evolution from a small niche for the most serious exercise enthusiasts to one with more mainstream appeal, attracting more “lifestyle” users. Fuelling this shift is the growing availability and visibility of accessible products such as snacks and drinks from sports nutrition brands.
That protein is held in high esteem in a healthy eating context, particularly among young people, has been key to the sports nutrition food and drinks market’s recent success. This has also led to a surge in high-protein product innovation from mainstream brands, with Mars and Snickers protein bars the latest high-profile launch in this area. This is acting to blur the boundaries between sports nutrition products and those from mainstream brands, particularly when the latter takes a performance-oriented position such as Arla Protein.
Products covered in this report
This report looks at consumer usage of and attitudes towards sports nutrition products. These are foods, drinks and supplements targeted at athletes, as well as for the mainstream consumer that exercises, such as protein bars, drinks and powders, energy bars and gels and related supplements.
Attitudes to protein and products positioned as high in protein, but not specifically targeting sports-related occasions, are also discussed in the report.
