The Gummy Playbook: Why Snackable Supplements Are the Next Big Thing

In 1997, a vitamin shaped like a gummy bear was a novelty for kids. By 2025, gummies were the best-selling supplement format in the United States, with 24.6% of sales by delivery format.

That climb wasn't luck. It followed a pattern: a format that tastes good starts small, wins a loyal niche, gets taken seriously by big companies, and then becomes what people expect. We believe the jelly stick is at the start of that same pattern.

Here's how the gummy did it, and what it suggests about where snackable supplements go next.

How the gummy won America

Stage 1: A novelty for a niche (1997). Hero Nutritionals launched Yummi Bears after its founder asked a simple question: why can't something kids love also be good for them? Getting there took almost two years of work with formulators and flavor houses. For years, gummy vitamins were mostly a children's product.

Stage 2: Adults join in (2000s–2012). Brands like Vitafusion brought gummies to adults, and the format moved from the kids' shelf to the main aisle. In 2012, Church & Dwight paid $650 million in cash for Vitafusion's maker. At the time, gummies held just 3% of the vitamin category.

Stage 3: Big companies scale it (2012–2019). With national distribution behind it, gummies grew to 11% of the vitamin category within about four years, according to Church & Dwight. By 2019, non-pill formats as a group outsold pills for the first time (Nutrition Business Journal).

Stage 4: The format becomes the default (2020–2025). Gummy sales jumped 72% in 2021 alone, reaching about $12.8 billion, then kept growing 12.2% in 2022 while the overall supplement market grew just 1.9% (Nutrition Business Journal). By 2025, gummies reached $18.25 billion and became the No. 1 format at 24.6% of sales.

One detail from that rise matters most. In a 2022 Nutrition Business Journal survey, gummies ranked only third in what people actually took, but first in what they preferred. Demand was running ahead of supply. The brands that met it early took the biggest share.

Where the market stands today

The classic pill (tablets, capsules and softgels) now accounts for about a third of US supplement sales. The rest is formats people chew, mix or drink.

Why snackable supplements are the next trend

The gummy didn't just win a category. It changed what Americans expect a supplement to feel like. The next wave is formats that work like snacks: something you enjoy, carry with you and eat between meals.

• Taste now drives the purchase. Among gummy users, 52% say taste is the top quality they look for, ahead of price at 37% (Glanbia Health & Wellness Consumer Study, 2023).
• Supplements and snacks are merging. Three in five consumers worldwide are adding more protein to their diets as part of healthy snacking, and half say "high in protein" is an important quality in a snack (Innova Market Insights, 2026).
• Younger buyers want benefits in food form. In a July 2026 Pew survey, 37% of US adults under 30 took protein supplements, a category that includes drinks and bars, compared with 23% of adults 65 and older.
• Indulgence is part of the appeal. "People want indulgent experiences when they're restricting their diet elsewhere," formulator Karin Hermoni told SupplySide Global in 2025. "Gen Z is all about gummies, chewables and shots."
• New formats bring new customers. At the same event, one brand reported that customers it gained through a single gummy product were 40% more likely to subscribe to another product within six months (SupplySide Supplement Journal, 2025).
• The growth is in non-pill formats. In 2025, the fastest-growing formats were powders (+11%), liquids (+10%) and chewables (+9.5%) (Nutrition Business Journal).

The jelly stick is on the gummy's path

Put the two formats side by side and the pattern looks familiar.

For gummies, the fastest growth came after large manufacturers invested in scale. We believe the jelly stick is entering that stage in the US now.

Where the paths could differ

History rhymes, but it doesn't repeat exactly. A few things will shape how fast jelly sticks grow:

• Texture is less familiar. Gummies borrowed from candy Americans already loved. Jelly is everyday in Asia but newer here, so flavor and firmness need testing with US buyers.
• The serving is bigger. A jelly stick is a single larger serving, not a handful of small pieces. That gives formulators more room, but it changes pricing, packaging and how products sit on a shelf.
• Gummies had to win trust. Independent testing has found gummy products that missed their label claims. Jelly stick brands can learn from that by backing every product with stability testing from day one.
• Speed is different now. Gummies took about 25 years. With TikTok Shop and online buying, a new format can travel much faster, or fade faster if it disappoints.

Sources

• Hero Nutritionals, Our Story (Yummi Bears, 1997)
• The Columbian, Vancouver-based vitamin maker bought for $650M, 20 Aug 2012
• Drug Store News, C&D CEO: Gummy business booming (gummies 3% → 11% of the vitamin category)
• New Hope / NBJ, Gummies now make up 21.3% of supplement sales, 6 May 2022
• New Hope / NBJ, Have gummy supplements hit their ceiling?, 20 Jun 2024
• Nutraceuticals World, US supplement sales hit $72.88 billion, 16 Mar 2026
• Glanbia Nutritionals, Beyond Pills, 12 Aug 2024
• Innova Market Insights, Snack Trends 2026, 13 Mar 2026
• Pew Research Center, About 8 in 10 Americans take supplements, 10 Sep 2026
• SupplySide Supplement Journal, Pill fatigue is real, 6 Nov 2025
• Edaily, Cosmax jelly sales Q1 2026, 15 Jun 2026
• Noom, What Is Cutting Jelly?, 18 Feb 2026