Supplement delivery systems

Look beyond capsules and tablets to innovate your supplement product launch in style.

Todd Runestad, Content Director, SupplySideSJ.com

June 17, 2019

2 Min Read
Supplement delivery systems.jpg

While pills and capsules remain the most popular format for delivering nutrients in dietary supplements, brands are continuing to innovate around delivery systems, and consumers continue to shift to alternative delivery when the products meet expectations around efficacy, ingredient quality and convenience.”

It all started about two decades ago when two innovations hit the scene that began shifting dietary supplement delivery formats.

The first shift in the way manufacturers delivered nutrients happened with vegetarian encapsulation systems, which gave consumers choice in putting their vegetarian values into the capsules they popped.

The second was gummi bears—once just another cute candy for kids—which became a format by which to deliver not just sugar and fun but also nutrients.

Gummies saw a 109 percent growth in preference over a seven-year period, according to a 2018 Natural Marketing Institute (NMI) report. Growth in this and other alternatives-to-pills formats are coming from younger generations the iGen, Millennials and Gen Xers.

While remaining in the pill format, softgels can improve the bioavailability of nutrients compared to other dosage forms.

Softgels also better protect ingredients, allowing nutrients to make it further down the digestive system.

In an attempt to boost bioavailability of nutrients, other technologies are coming to the fore to supercharge supplements.

One is liposomes, which are made of phospholipids—the basic building blocks of cell membranes—and encapsulate nutritional compounds. These tiny molecular spheres bond with cell membranes to deliver nutrients into cells. Liposomes also bypass the digestive process that normally degrade or limit the body’s ability to fully absorb and utilize nutrients.

One new bioavailability booster is a proprietary microtablet technology that is about the size of a BB and dissolves and disperses nutrients in seconds.

All of these shifts in the supplement market helps meet consumers where they are—whether they have difficulty swallowing, or are weary of taking pills, or are just looking for something new and novel in their quest for optimal nutrition.

Read more in the Contract Manufacturing for Supplements digitial magazine. 

About the Author

Todd Runestad

Content Director, SupplySideSJ.com, SupplySide Supplement Journal

Todd Runestad has been writing on nutrition science news since 1997. He is content director for SupplySide Supplement Journal and its digital magazines. Other incarnations: content director for Natural Products Insider (now rebranded to SupplySide Supplement Journal), supplements editor for NewHope.com, Delicious Living!, and Natural Foods Merchandiser. Former editor-in-chief of Functional Ingredients magazine and still covers raw material innovations and ingredient science.

Connect with me here on LinkedIn.

Specialty

Todd writes about nutrition science news such as this story on mitochondrial nutrients, innovative ingredients such as this story about 12 trendy new ingredient launches from SupplySide West 2023, and is a judge for the NEXTY awards honoring innovation, integrity and inspiration in natural products including his specialty — dietary supplements. He extensively covered the rise and rise and rise and fall of cannabis hemp CBD. He helps produce in-person events at SupplySide West and SupplySide East trade shows and conferences, including the wildly popular Ingredient Idol game show, as well as Natural Products Expo West and Natural Products Expo East and the NBJ Summit. He was a board member for the Hemp Industries Association.

Education / Past Lives

In previous lives Todd was on the other side of nature from natural products — natural history — as managing editor at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. He's sojourned to Burning Man and Mount Everest. He graduated many moons ago from the State University of New York College at Oneonta.

Quotes

"There is not a colds-and-flu season. There is a vitamin D-deficiency season."

"There is no such thing as inclement weather. Only improper attire."

Link answers question, "When taking magnesium, should you also take vitamin D3 2,000 IU?"

"Cannabis is nature's most nearly perfect plant."

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