World demand for nutraceutical ingredients is projected to increase more than 7% percent annually to nearly $24 billion in 2015. Substances with clinically confirmed health benefits and broad applications in foods, beverages, dietary supplements, and adult and pediatric nutritional preparations will provide the best growth opportunities. These and other trends are presented in “World Nutraceutical Ingredients,” a new study from The Freedonia Group, Inc., a Cleveland, OH-based industry research firm.
 
Global trends in nutraceutical ingredients will result in developing regions achieving much faster growth in both consumption and production than developed regions. Increasing economic prosperity will enable countries, such as the BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China, as well as Mexico, Poland and South Korea, to expand and diversify their food and beverage, processing and pharmaceutical industries. Based on projected investment levels in these industries and rising consumer incomes, China will evolve into the largest global producer and consumer of nutraceutical ingredients by 2020, surpassing the U.S. and Western Europe.
 
Because of maturing markets, the supply and demand of nutraceutical ingredients in the developed countries will increase more slowly than the average pace of the developing world. Nonetheless, food, beverage and drug makers in the developed economies will continue to pursue opportunities in conventional and specialty nutritional products and natural medicines. As a result, they will remain major customers for nutraceutical ingredients.
 
Nutrients, including proteins, fibers and various specialized functional additives, will remain the top-selling group of nutraceutical ingredients. Proteins will post the fastest gains as food and beverage makers throughout the world introduce new high value-added nutritional preparations. Functional additives and fiber nutrients will also fare well in the global marketplace. Naturally derived substances, consisting of herbal and botanical extracts and animal- and marine-based derivatives, will command the fastest growth among the three major groups of nutraceutical ingredients. World demand for minerals and vitamin ingredients consumed in nutraceutical applications is forecast to reach $6 billion in 2015, up 6% annually from 2010.