2020, March 18th: Women’s Nutrition

Most scientific research on performance and active lifestyle nutrition is performed on young healthy men. There is of course nothing wrong with that, when designing nutrition for this specific segment. However, realising that around half of the people using sports nutrition products are actually women, one starts to wonder why only 2,5% of sports nutrition products specifically target women. This obviously offers huge opportunities for differentiation.

Women are physically and mentally quite different when compared to men, requiring specific nutrition. Physically, their body composition is different and their mental (cognitive, wellbeing) drivers and needs are distinctly different. Recently, FrieslandCampina Ingredients was present as a platinum sponsor at the NutraIngredients Sport Nutrition Summit in San Diego USA. During the event FrieslandCampina Ingredients Performance Nutrition, led a round-table discussion on women’s nutrition and participated in an expert panel discussion, on this evolving and important topic.

The expert discussions harvested some really nice insights on the differences between men and women in sports nutrition buying behavior. For example, where almost 70% of the men focus more on the type of protein and 47% on endorsement of athletes, women are more interested in natural ingredients (77%) and digestive health benefits. This highlights opportunities for companies to take the opportunity and build targeted propositions dedicated to the female performance and active lifestyle audience.