Sport brands beef up on protein boom

What’s big, bulging and increasingly in your face? It’s the sports nutrition category, of course, where numbers have been pumped up all over due to a rush of new products and stores devoting more space to them. 

Overall, the category is looking seriously fit, with sales up 17.3% to £77.4m. Volumes have grown 32.1%, the sharp fall in average pack prices reflecting growing competition, a boom in convenient ready-to-eat and drink options and the development of smaller packs of protein powder for the supermarkets. So which products have come out on top?

GSK is the market leader thanks to its range of MaxiNutrition products that give it “around 25% share” of the total category, says development director Sean Barry. He believes the key driver of growth has been the increasingly competitive nature of the category.

“New entrants have come in, pricing has got more competitive, volumes are being driven up by more aggressive promotional programmes, and there are more people coming into the market,” he says. “More and more retailers are starting to open up on these products. Everyone sees it as an exciting opportunity because it’s in its infancy. In Australia, average individual spend on protein products is about £30; in the UK its £6. It shows the opportunity for growth.”

That’s why everyone from the grocers to Boots and Holland & Barrett are giving growing shelf space to sports nutrition and are widening ranges. “We already dedicate 15% of sales in every Holland & Barrett to the category,” says Sam Cordwell, sports nutrition category head at the retailer. “That’s been the case for 30 years. There aren’t many categories in healthcare with 18% CAGR growth over the past four years and penetration is still low, at 4%. There’s huge room for growth.”

Powders still dominate, although growth is slowing. Sci-Mx is the only major brand that remains in growth when it comes to powder. “We cut through with our advertising that focused on powders and capsules this year; it really drove sales,” says Chay Watkins, head of marketing at Sci-Mx.

However, he is quick to point to the performance of its convenience products, like its Pro2Go cookies (our Top Launch, below; it will roll out a new oatmeal and raisin variant next year), which are “reframing” the category in terms of convenience. While the category used to be made up of large tubs of protein powder, a cornucopia of convenient choice is now available, from drinks and bars (the most popular) to small sachets of gel from inventive brands like Clif.

The fall in single-purchase price points is also a key driver of growth, says Barry. “The average price point of a tub of powder could be £30 but a bar is £2, so the category is more accessible because it’s being offered in smaller formats,” he says. “Plus you can buy it in supermarkets. GSK is looking at around 60% growth across the bar market. They’re seen as healthier alternatives for snacking as people become more familiar with protein products and the benefits they can offer.”

Ready-to-drink shakes, rather than powders blended by the consumer, are also growing at 40%, so bars and drinks are the “obvious products” for retailers to push, says Cordwell. “We increasingly see more people buying our Precision Engineering bars who aren’t traditional customers. People buying singles aren’t stereotypical sports nutrition shoppers. They are looking for a healthy snack or a daily protein supplement in a convenient format that’s on the go.”

This convergence of sports nutrition and the mainstream is a key trend when it comes to emerging products, says Cordwell. “At the moment you have drinks, bars, gels and not much else,” he says. “But there are brands out there, like Protein Works, which are doing a really excellent job at offering more varied, snackable alternative formats and flavours.”

Going mainstream

Protein is certainly becoming a more mainstream trend. “When we looked at the market there were a million bars but we wanted to bring totally new products,” says Nick Smith, director at Protein Works. “We launched a Protein Brownie, Protein Popcorn and a Protein Pancake mix and many more products,” he adds. “We also launched a small 25g Protein Grazer, a small protein bar you can snack on, rather than a standard protein bar that could be up to 90g. This whole area, creating indulgent foodie flavours to make products that people might actually enjoy, was really interesting as it was totally new. And it stretched the user base from its existing market into a general active lifestyle market where people just want to look after themselves. We make fresh products every day in our in-house bakery.”

And new products are pushing the old ones out, says Cordwell. He says “traditional, old school” supplements like creatine are in decline. “It’s been commoditised as an ingredient and widely dropped into other formulations, so the need to buy single creatine products has vastly reduced and the value has dropped out of the product over time,” he says. “You can get it online quite cheaply now as a separate product.”

But the category itself is not without challenges. “For anyone new to the category it can be difficult,” says Barry. “Different retailers merchandise the products in different aisles; some put them with sports, some in pharmacy, some in healthcare. In a perfect world you’d have it in healthcare where there is high foot traffic. Still, there are a lot of products and it can be very confusing to stand in front of the fixture and choose the right one. Walkaway driven by confusion is a key challenge.”

It’s a challenge GSK tackled by going big on the Rugby World Cup with a £1.2m campaign to team English rugby stars with MaxiNutrition products Progain, Cyclone and Promax (see left). “We used big PoS in stores to get the products out there and into people’s faces. We wanted to make it top of mind and increase awareness. And we did see a spike in sales because it introduced the products to a wider consumer base and made them more accessible to new and existing customers.”

More snacking and chilled options in different formats represent a “massive opportunity”, believes Barry. Plus, there will be an overall improvement in flavour itself. “A preconception around protein products is that they don’t taste good,” he says. “What excites me is that products are now starting to taste really good. Our milkshakes (including the bright pink packaged Sculptress range) are starting to taste like milkshakes.”

Perhaps nothing sums up the mainstream direction sports nutrition products are heading in as much as Samworth Brothers, which owns brands like Ginsters, stepping in to acquire Sci-Mx for an undisclosed fee in September. “We will benefit from that investment,” says Watkins. “I think we are one of the first to be bought by a food group, and we have exciting plans together.”

So given the convergence of sports nutrition and the mainstream, could one of those exciting plans manifest itself in the shape of a Ginsters Protein Pasty? Not yet. Disappointingly, there are “no plans to look at collaborating” on actual products, says Watkins, and however much sports nutrition products are diversifying, a sports pasty might be a step too far. However, Watkins suggests category leader MaxiNutrition ought to watch its back: “Sci-Mx will be focusing on becoming the number one brand in protein snacking and powders.” Game on!