The Vitamins, Minerals, and Supplements (VMS) market is one of the most dynamic and interesting markets across the consumer packaged goods landscape. Over the past few decades, as consumers have become more and more focused on their health and wellbeing, they have increased their daily regime of consuming these products. The number of VMS products on shelves and available online through ecommerce has expanded tremendously as more brands and new products have emerged to satisfy this growing market demand. In the past, one daily multivitamin might have been the entire consumption for most consumers. Today, the wide variety of products with specific targeted benefits has resulted in very customized product selections and consumption habits for consumers.
Information on the VMS Market:
- The size of the VMS market in the USA is expected to reach over $25 Billion in total retail product sales in 2024. The compounded annual growth rate has been approx. 7.5% over the last 8 years, easily outpacing the overall economy.
- Multivitamins are stagnating while gummies are growing
- Strong growth for herbal supplements
- Low barriers to enter into VMS
- VMS innovations focused on specific consumer needs and packaging
VMS Packaging - Trends and Opportunities
Nearly all VMS packaging includes a container and a closure. The 3 main types of closures used are the basic screw-on-and-off Continuous Thread (CT) Closures, Flip-Top Dispensing Closures with wide opening for consumer convenience, and Child-Resistant Closures (CRCs) that are required due to specific product ingredients or a desire to ensure children do not have access.
For many years, the closures used in VMS packaging did not see much change and marketers all used very similar solutions for their brands. As more brands have entered the market and market leaders work to protect and grow their market share, the interest in new and innovative closure solutions has increased. Effective packaging, and the closures used, can help brands stand out on shelf, reinforce quality perception, and help meet brand/company sustainability targets. Ultimately, packaging and closures play a key role in the initial purchase, repeat purchase and overall brand loyalty.
PHOENIX has been a key supplier of vitamins, minerals, and supplements packaging for many years with supply of our Classic CT closures. In assessing the market a few years ago, we saw the market was hungry for innovation and looking to enhance shelf appearance and the consumer experience.
Knowing that, we focused on designing new closure products that offered incremental innovation. Our focus was on making child-resistant closures (CRCs) and flip-top dispensing closures that look and feel more contemporary, perform with higher quality perception, and address the growing demand for products with improved sustainability metrics.
To that end, we have developed and launched two innovative product lines:
- Vista®, our contemporary-styled, two-piece CRC product line with reduced plastic content (vs. competitive options).
- Mesa Nutra™, our flip-top dispensing closure product line with design enhancements over competitive offerings with a full, stay open lid and the ability to cost effectively customize with embossing and logo printing.
With both Vista and Mesa Nutra, we have already seen several leading national brands choose these solutions for their packaging. Combined with our Classic CT product line, PHOENIX is uniquely positioned to meet all the closure needs for VMS brands – both large and small. We continue to expand our capacity to meet the growing market demand, and we have added key products such as CRCs to our stock inventory program to support the needs of smaller to mid-sized brands.
We are not stopping here…our next innovation for the VMS market is Horizon™. Horizon is a one-piece CRC that looks very similar to 2-piece CRCs, but offers a significant reduction in plastic content. Horizon is available today for HDPE containers and is soon to be available for PET-based containers.
In summary, it is an exciting time in the vitamins, minerals, and supplements market with continued growth and marketers battling for consumer attention and market share. Innovative closures from PHOENIX are playing a key role in in the packaging solutions being selected for brand success today and tomorrow.
