(Food-Beverage-News.Com, December 30, 2016 ) Sports nutrition comprises sports drinks and sports food. Sports drinks holds the major market share in sports nutrition market and sports food is expected to witness a significant growth in the near future. This is attributed to increasing availability of these products across online market, supermarket and departmental stores. Sports food consist energy bar, protein bar and nutritional powder. Understanding the need of sports food market, companies are now coming with variety of supplement powder and bars in sports food market. Owing to busy life it is easy to get proper nutrients for the sports persons in a single product. Carbohydrates and protein foods are very popular in sports food market. Soya and whey are major provider of protein in sports food market. Demand for sports food products has made the sports nutrition market flourish and it is also expected to have high growth during next couple of years.
Global Sports Food Market Segmentation:
On the basis of food product type sports food market is segmented into dietary supplement powder, energy bar and protein bar. Global sports market is segmented on the basis of ingredients, such as vitamin & minerals, protein and carbohydrates. On the basis of users global sports market is segmented into bodybuilding users, athletic users and recreational users. Geographically sports food market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan, Middle East and Africa.
Many factors that drive global sports food market include rapid urbanisation and health concerns among consumers. Innovative and effective product development makes the market more vibrant. Companies’ mass marketing strategies make sports food products easy availability which helps the manufacturers to develop the sports food market across the untapped as well as targeted market. Other many macro-economic factors such as employment, disposable income level and other social factors are also influencing sports food market indirectly.
Sports food products are not widely available in under developed countries. Moreover, due to high price of sports food products, the market is only concentrated among high and higher meddle income groups. Currently, these factors are restraining the market growth. However being untapped market, emerging countries and other under developed countries are the opportunities for the sports food marketers. Global poverty level has been reducing and it is expected that sports food market holds a significant market share among emerging and under developed countries in the upcoming forecasted years. Owing to increase the health awareness among consumers, sports foods are now gaining popularity among non-sports consumers as well.
Some of the key players operating in the market are, Nestle SA, Danone S.A, Clif Bar & Company, Alpsnack Inc, The Hain Celestial Group, Inc, Met-Rx Substrate Technology, Inc., MusclePharm, Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc, Glanbia Plc.
