In a few days, 25,000 of us will gather in Barcelona for Vitafoods Europe. Booths will gleam. New ingredients will be unveiled. Reunions will happen over espresso.
And somewhere between the keynote stage and the trade-floor buzz, I think it’s worth pausing to acknowledge something we don’t say nearly often enough:
The Nutraceutical industry has done something remarkable.
In a single generation, we have taken what was once a fringe category – vitamins, herbs, “alternative” supplements – and built a $700 billion global industry that millions of people genuinely depend on for their health, their energy, their longevity. We have rescued ingredients from obscurity, given them science, given them legitimacy, earned them shelves in pharmacies and not just health-food stores. That is not a small achievement. That is one of the great consumer-health stories of the last 50 years.
So before I say anything else, let me say this clearly: Thank You.
Thank you to the founders who took a leap on a botanical when nobody believed. To the scientists who ran the first proper clinical trials when the word “supplement” still had air-quotes around it. To the formulators, the regulatory teams, the quality leads, the brand builders, the procurement specialists. The industry got here on the strength of your work – and your conviction.
Now – because I love this industry, and because we will be standing shoulder to shoulder in Barcelona – let me share the conversation I think we owe each other for the next decade.
Falling in love with the full product, not just the hero
If you ask any consumer what’s “in” their supplement, they will name the active ingredient. Curcumin. Ashwagandha. NMN. Berberine. The hero molecule on the front of the bottle.
As an industry, we have been brilliant at getting the world to fall in love with these actives, and rightly so. The science behind them is real, the storytelling is well earned, and the consumer trust we have built around hero ingredients is one of our most valuable assets. We should keep doing it.
But there is a quieter, equally beautiful truth that I believe deserves equal billing: a hero ingredient, on its own, is just a powder in a jar. What turns that powder into something that actually works inside a human body is the other 70% of the product – the excipients, the carriers, the disintegrants, the coatings. The unglamorous chemistry of delivery.
This is not a critique of how much we celebrate actives. It’s a gentle invitation to fall in love with the whole product. Because a beautifully validated active in a poorly designed matrix is a missed opportunity for the consumer who trusted us and that consumer’s trust is the foundation everything else is built on.
Three friendly nudges from inside the tent
I want to risk being mildly contrarian here. Not because the industry has failed, but because the industries that age gracefully are the ones that have these conversations before anyone forces them to.
1. Let’s protect the “natural alternative” narrative by being its most careful stewards. The GLP-1 era is opening extraordinary doors for our category. There has never been a moment when consumers were more curious about metabolic health, gut health, longevity, and prevention. That curiosity is a gift to all of us. Botanicals, fibre blends, polyphenols, fermented complexes – these have real, meaningful roles to play in this conversation. The opportunity is to let our formulation science do the heavy lifting and let our marketing follow, rather than the other way around. The brands that earn the most trust this decade will be the ones whose claims their R&D leaders are completely comfortable defending.
2. Let’s keep raising the bar on what “clinically studied” means, because we want to. This phrase has done enormous good for our industry. It has separated serious players from the rest, and consumers have rewarded us for it. Let’s protect that goodwill by being its strictest stewards: properly powered trials, placebo arms, independent replication where possible. The companies that voluntarily hold themselves to this standard today will be the unassailable ones a decade from now.
3. Let’s celebrate craft as loudly as we celebrate novelty. A new ingredient gets a press release. A reformulation that meaningfully improves bioavailability often gets a footnote. Both are innovation. Both deserve the spotlight. Some of the most valuable work in our industry is happening quietly inside formulation labs that the trade press has never visited. The next decade of consumer outcomes will be won as much by how we deliver actives as by which actives we discover. That deserves applause
What I genuinely believe about where we’re headed
Nutraceuticals will be one of the most consequential categories of the next 25 years. As healthcare costs rise, as populations age, as the world finally begins to treat prevention as seriously as it treats treatment, our industry is positioned to matter more than it ever has.
We are not at the end of our story. We are barely at the end of the beginning.
The next chapter belongs to the players who treat the entire product – actives and the foundation underneath them as a single craft. Brand and science. Hero and supporting cast. The 30% on the front of the bottle and the 70% that quietly makes it work.
What Sigachi is bringing to Vitafoods 2026
We make excipients such as microcrystalline cellulose, croscarmellose sodium, co-processed functional carriers, and tablet coating systems. This is the science that enables a well-selected active to translate into consistent performance in the human body.
We have been doing this for 36 years, across 65+ countries, alongside some of the finest brands and formulators in the world. And the best partnerships we have ever had with brand owners have all started with the same simple conversation:
“Let’s talk about the whole product – not just the headline ingredient.”