Report: Digestion is fastest-growing market

With increased interest among health-conscious consumers, a large number of gut-health or digestive-health products have been launched in the market. The research found the United States is coming closer to Europe in consumer preference for digestive health products.

In "U.S. Digestive Health Ingredients Markets (2010 - 2015)," MarketsandMarkets reported the probiotics market in the United States is at an emerging stage. With reference to the awareness level among the United States consumers against European consumers, the U.S. consumers are still in the growing stage, and a huge opportunity exists for the companies who could educate and create awareness among consumers. In the U.S. market, the consumption of probiotics through dietary supplement products is high. However in Europe, the reverse is the case where consumers are more often consume probiotics in a more diluted form through dairy and other food and beverage products.

Europe is still the leader in terms of market value and number of new product launches in the digestive health domain, according to the report. In the United States, the awareness has reached the next level, and some aggressive marketing could take this market to the highest level, it noted.

The market dynamics and trends are very different among the three segments analyzed in the report: prebiotics (fructans, mannan oligosaccharides [MOS], gacato-oligosaccharide (GOS) and others), probiotics and digestive enzymes (proteases, lipases carbohydrases, lactases and others).  Prebiotics and probiotics are growing at double-digit growth rate as compared to the digestive enzymes that are experiencing a relatively lower growth rate. Prebiotics is the largest revenue generating ingredient among the three major segments followed by probiotics and enzymes. The most popular trend is the availability of multi-enzyme supplements for digestive problems.

Major companies analyzed in this report include BENEO-Group, SENSUS, GTC Nutrition, Cargill Inc., Amano Enzyme Inc., National Enzyme Company, Chr Hansen A/S, Royal DSM N.V., Danisco A/S and Institut Rosell-Lallemand.