Number cruncher: Europe’s key supplement markets, brands & opportunities revealed

The European food supplements market is highly diverse, fast-changing and predicted for strong growth across multiple categories and regions. But what does the marketplace actually look like? Where is expected to grow? And which brands have the biggest market share? 

In this updated special edition article, NutraIngredients has teamed up with Euromonitor International to bring you the key insights in Europe’s €7.2 billion dietary supplement industry - including an in depth and interactive infographic.

According to Euromonitor data, the overall European dietary supplement market is projected to grow by around 9.5% in the next few years – hitting an estimated €7.9 bn market value by 2020.

While three European countries (Italy, Russia, and Germany) made it in to the top ten global marketplaces for dietary supplements in 2014, there has been much more rapid growth in Eastern European markets. Indeed, Belarus witnessed the sixth biggest growth by any country in the world between 2013 and 2014, and saw 15%  year-on-year growth.

Shrinking Germany

Despite having the second biggest market for dietary supplements in Europe, and the seventh biggest in the world in 2014, the German dietary supplement market has actually shrunk in recent years. The country was the top European market in 2009, but witnessed an 6.6% decline between 2010 and 2015 – knocking an estimated €68.7 million off the value of its market.

But Germany’s decline has been to the benefit of Italy and Russia, with italy already riding high above Germany in the 2015 markets table, and Russia set to rise above Germany in the next five years.

Eastern promise​

The rapid market growth in Belarus between 2013 and 2014, which helped it rank as the sixth biggest growing in the world, is a small part of the story for country – which has seen the value of its dietary supplements market increase by an astonishing 399% between 2010 and 2015 - albeit from a very small value of just €3.1m to €15.5m in 2015.

While, Euromonitor forecasts that this rapid growth will begin to slow in the next five years through to 2020, a predicted growth of around 11% remains higher than many Western European markets. 

Indeed, Eastern Europe in general has seen huge growth in the market for dietary supplements in recent years compared to Western Europe – with a 60% increase in market value between 2010 and 2015, and further growth of 18.9% predicted by 2020.

This compares to just over 11.3% growth in the Western European marketplace between 2010 and 2015, and a forecasted rise of around 6.3% by 2020.

Indeed, Eastern European countries dominate the projected fastest growing marketplaces up to 2020 – with Romania, Turkey, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Russia, and Macedonia making up five of the top six fastest growing markets according to Euromonitor's forecast data.