Gummy Supplements: Merits And Challenges

Over the past few years, the market for dietary supplements has arisen an explosive growth among consumers of all ages. With people feeling more comfortable after they take the supplements, they hope these supplements can be more suitable for their daily life.

The idea of adding another pill to their daily intake doesn't appeal to customers who now have other delivery options to choose from. If they need to take large, sometimes very large tablets or capsules each day. It was definitely stressful for them. This stress, known as "tablet strain," has spurred innovation in formulations.

There are some solutions that decrease the size of tablets, but for some customers, the thought of taking another pill no matter the size, is still not popular among them.

Then, supplement manufacturers are faced with a specific challenge in keeping on supporting the health benefit that customers demand while differentiating the dosage from experience. Like more traditional solutions, such as chewable tablets. It really exists. What’ more, because their appearance is similar to the standard tables, they will also cause the same user stress as traditional tablets.

Evolving consumer preferences have lead the supplement manufacturers to take more creative methods to catch the customers’ eyes.

Enter the gummy

An interesting palatable, and man-carried Delivery plan

Gummy, one of the most popular format variations, its market share is constantly increasing. According to the Nutrition Business Journal, the CAGR of gummy supplements is 16% in 2018, and the CAGR of the whole supplement is 6%. Gummy accounted for 12% of all dietary supplement sales that year.

Supplements customers will continue to choose the gummy format. The survey data comes from the Council Responsible Nutrition indicating that about 49% of supplement customers abandon the traditional delivery format.

In 2019, the largest category of gummy supplement was created in the USA, which includes vitamins and minerals, and other categories such as herbal/botanical preparations, probiotics, and melatonin are becoming more and more popular.

One of the main reasons for the growth of gummy comes from consumer experience when consuming it. Not only do gummies not look like drugs; if with the right recipe, they won't taste like it.

Gummy can provide customers with funny, taste and portable ways to help them take in everyday nutrition supplements and still offer the health claim needed for customers。

The changes in the perspective of taking gummy supplements can not only distinguish the brand but also attract more customers for companies’ production line.

Be customized for efficacy and the best sensory experience

When preparing the gummy, there are many elements that need be considered to ensure customers will have stable products, accordant efficacy and the best sensory experience.

The manufacturers also need to take the preference of different customers into consideration. For example, the eagerness for the ingredients of cleaning labels, the options for inanimacy and health problems changing.-- From the heat to sugar content.

There are many types of gummies that are pleasurable because their sweet and sugary taste，but customers will show more preference to which accord with the focus on personal health, low-sugar and non-sugar options.

Sugar is related to various adverse health problems, so the options low-sugar or non-sugar gummy can further draw customers' attention to use this form. However, this preference brings extra challenges for formula designers. Because sugar substitutes may feature with different taste features and to give different textures to the final product.

Many hydrocolloids-- such as gelatin, this is an ingredient that is familiar with customers and formula designer-- can be used to produce colloidal substrate. Gelatin’s low reaction and easy to process make it become a good stat for formula designers.

Although they do have drawbacks, about 35°C low melting point makes it have specific sensory experience, but if it reserves improperly before or after transportation, gelatin and gummy will trend to melt, which may result in unpleasant clumps and shape defects. Gummy producers can overcome this limitation by mixing gelatin and pectin to make gummy substrates.

Satisfy customer’s dietary habit preference and sustainability

As the global population moves towards more sustainable and non-animal options, the gelatin that comes from animal’s skin, skeleton, connective tissue is no longer winning the favor of many people.

In order to offer vegetarian diets or vegan diets substitutions, the formula designer can explore other hydrophilic colloids, such as the jellies and seaweed extract, you can combine them to user or use them individually.

Jelly may bring a familiar feeling for customers, because it is a welcomed dessert ingredient and it derives from orange peels. This means it is a vegan diet substitute that can be purchased sustainably.

This familiarity with the ingredients will be a great help to win consumers’ trust for new products launch.

The Gummy, which is prepared by using these non-animal ingredient substitutions, can make more people enjoy the active ingredients’ health benefit and conform to their life-style preference.

These substitutions also provide some technical advantages, such as improving heating stability to keep the gelatin’s structure, and different textures that are more extensive than gelatin’s elasticity during processing and transporting.Same as ant ingredients, they have their own challenges, such as the sensibility of different metal ions and PH range.

Facing these challenges, only by proceeding various changes can formula designers manage to produce stale products, for example, making process changes to the order in which ingredients are added; making sure of the different considerations of the formula, such as the use of the deionized water.

Provide stability is the key

No matter what ingredient will be chosen in formula, stability is vital for any gummies. Not only

do the active ingredient need to stay stable to give more health benefits, but also needs to keep the texture and taste of gummies during the whole shelf life.

Customers hope they can taste, feel and provide the same health benefits from opening the bottle to using it up. Formula designers need to make a discreet decision about the ingredient that is added into the colloidal substrate.

The demand for gummy in the future

It is obvious that gummy supplements have changed over the past 10 years.​ With the appearance of new trend and the increasing demand for gummy, formula designers are compelled to find new solutions to meet requirements for processing dosage forms and customers' preference.

The key to sustainable innovation in this area is cooperating with the main suppliers, which are able to offer assistance throughout the whole R&D and production process.