How energy drinks are bucking health trends with rapid growth across Asia
Energy drinks have been posting strong growth across Asia, according to data analytics firm GlobalData.
In Asia, the category’s projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2029 is 11.97%, outpacing that of the US (4.27%) and Europe (8.4%), said Tim Hill, key accounts director for South East Asia, GlobalData at the Growth Asia Summit 2025.
Despite concerns around sugar, artificial ingredients, energy drinks are now seen seen functional, performance-enhancing, and its growth shows how products with a distinct value proposition may outweigh negative perceptions.
Vinamilk talks trends, opportunities in Vietnam’s infant formula market
Product differentiation, premiumization, and playing it smart at the retail end are some of the ways in standing out from the stiff competition in Vietnam’s infant formula sector, said leading local dairy firm Vinamilk.
“The competition in Vietnam, especially in the infant nutrition segment, is very tough for both local and foreign companies.
“If you watch the market trends closely, it is getting increasingly premium, with a lot of infant formulas fortified by advanced nutrients, like HMOs, human milk probiotics (HMPs), DHA and many more,” Vinamilk’s chief marketing officer Tri Nguyen Quang told NutraIngredients.
From livestreaming to mini drama ads? Six trends in China’s health foods market
Mini dramas could become the next big thing for product advertising and sales, said an industry expert who highlighted five other health foods trends at the recent Growth Asia Summit.
One of the most prominent feature of China’s health foods consumer market, is how e-commerce has outpaced offline retail.
While livestreaming and interest commerce have dominated the e-commerce in recent years, mini dramas could become the next big thing, said Zhongpeng Zhang, secretary general of China Nutrition and Health Food Association (CNHFA).
Emerging trends or missed opportunities in the 2025 active nutrition market?
Active nutrition products could dosage format innovations that target younger generations who are “social-first, trend-driven, and highly visual”, according to Holland and Barrett.
Dr. Mark Evans, senior scientist at Holland and Barrett, highlighted several key opportunities in the active nutrition market, including the importance of the influence of social media on Gen Z, with platforms like TikTok offering targeted communication during the Active Nutrition Summit held in Vienna.
He also pointed out how Gen-Z would prefer marketing content that are less-polished, raw, direct, and attention-grabbing, such as ‘myth-busting’ or ‘five things to know about X ingredient’.
Next-gen probiotics to Douyin: Four major trends from China Healthplex Expo
From next generation probiotics to short video app Douyin snapping up health supplements sales, here are four major trends seen at the Healthplex Expo 2025 held in Shanghai during June.
One of them is a noticeable increase in the number of functional ingredient suppliers exhibiting next generation probiotics - specifically Akkermansia muciniphila .
One of the reasons for its rise is the association of Akkermansia with weight management and metabolic health, Dr Susan Jin, head of BU, IFF Health Sciences Greater Asia told us.
