August 24, 2026 – The convergence of mental well-being and physical performance creates opportunities for brands that combine the interest of consumers, the intensity of innovation, and corporate-level strategies.
Consumers are Concerned About Health
According to Innova Market Insights’ global research, consumers say they are concerned about their health, led by physical health but also emotional health and mental well-being. About half of consumers say the flavors they crave are influenced by their mood. This shows how emotions help drive everyday food decisions and how consumers do not separate mind from body as health priorities.
Food and Beverage Launches with Health Benefits Stand Out
New product launches tracked by Innova Market Insights show extremely strong growth in food and beverage products with energy, gut health, weight management, cognitive health, and mood and brain health claims. Growth far exceeds growth of launches in the overall food and beverage market. This shows that innovation is on the rise rather than launches shifting from one benefit to another.
Innova groups these benefits into two broad definitions. Core Active Nutrition includes protein, energy, sports nutrition, muscle health, and recovery. Core Holistic Well-being includes gut and digestive health, immune health, better sleep, improved mood, calmness, stress reduction, cognitive health, and mental focus. To bridge these benefits sets, brands need to offer features such as sustained energy, comprehensive recovery that encompasses rest and sleep, and “calm focus” with both mood benefits and cognitive benefits.
Active Nutrition and Holistic Wellbeing Go Together
Active nutrition and holistic wellbeing are not two separate concepts and opportunities. Active nutrition pertains to the support of physical performance and boosts the body’s ability to perform. It includes protein, energy, sports performance and recovery, and muscle health. Holistic wellbeing embraces a cluster of benefits that help consumers with internal resilience and balance. It encompasses immunity, gut health, cognitive function, calmness, mood, and sleep. Consumers globally who are looking for one also tend to look for the other.
Knowing this, Innova treats active nutrition and holistic wellbeing as a single opportunity. Brand innovation should and does combine active nutrition with holistic well-being. In fact, brands are bridging the gap between active nutrition and holistic well-being benefits in single products. Innova Market Insights captures this in its Mind Balance food and beverage trend that highlights mental health features of calmness, cognitive health, and adaptogen function. Consumers are highly interested. A growing percentage of consumers studied globally want physical performance, mental health, and emotional balance from single food, beverage, and supplement choices. They expect individual products to deliver more than one benefit.
Key Findings on Active Nutrition Trends
Data collected by Innova can be summarized into five key insights. The first is that consumers globally view wellbeing in a multidimensional way that includes concerns about physical health, emotional health, mental health, and social health in similar ways. The second is that consumers globally are highly concerned about sleep, energy, and body weight. Viewed together, these merge active nutrition with well-being as drivers. Third, innovation is on the rise at the intersection of active nutrition and well-being. New product launch claims are growing most rapidly for energy, gut health, cognitive health, and focus. Also, food and beverage launch trends are moving toward claim-stacking, that is, including both active nutrition claims and well-being claims in a single product. The fourth insight is that countries differ in their health claim priorities. In the US, Australia, and India, functional nutrition claims stand out. Claim intensity is lower in China and Japan. The fifth insight pertains to a gap between corporate action and consumer concern. Mind Balance captures consumer interest in mental well-being, and innovation is supporting this interest, but corporate annual reports do not show a strong commitment to this aspect of health.
Questions to Be Asked About Active Nutrition
The first question to ask is about the size and realistic nature of the active nutrition opportunity. Consumer trends research and new product launch data collected by Innova suggest that the opportunity is real. Consumer needs and new product innovation are converging into a need space that is bigger than a single category. Product launch growth in all aspects of the need space exceeds that of the overall food and beverage market. The second question is about what key benefits consumers are looking for in products. Leading desired benefits are sleep, weight, and sustained energy. These are followed by desires for skin health, gut health, and bone and joint health, where a combination of active nutrition and functional well-being benefits are sought after. The third question asks about key areas of innovation.
New product growth is strongest in benefits for energy and alertness, gut and digestive health, weight management, and cognitive health and focus. Protein is also important. Subcategories that stand out are sports nutrition, including protein-based RTD and sports bars, soft drinks like functional still drinks, and supplements like dietary fiber. Innova is tracking benefit-stacking with gut health plus immune health. Soft gels and gummies are growing as supplement formats. The next question asks about who is the most active in active nutrition. The answer is a broad group that includes multinational corporations, nutrition specialists, and private label brands. Finally, one needs to ask about how to connect functional with emotional benefits. Companies can reach consumers by combining and stacking benefits and ingredients to meet growing consumer needs for multifunctionality.
This article is based on Innova’s Beyond Performance: Quantifying the Active Nutrition & Well-being Opportunity – Global report. This report is available to purchase or with an Innova Reports subscription. Reach out to learn more