Specialist sports nutrition: efficient niche product manufacture

Personalised sports nutrition is one of the latest trends to impact this industry. How do small-scale ‘garage entrepreneurs’ tap into this trend and meet growing demand? We discuss how when getting started in sports nutrition manufacturing small-batch, high-product-variety can be scaled up, efficiently and cost-effectively. Specialist sports nutrition for the win The Olympic legacy, grassroots initiatives like Parkrun, clever advertising and social media engagement – all of these things have arguably contributed to an increase in sports participation in recent years – and along with it, an increase in the consumption of sports nutrition products. One of the biggest trends to hit this market is undoubtedly that of personalised sports nutrition. Generic protein shakes and energy gels just aren’t cutting it for many, and an increasing number of professional athletes, serious bodybuilders, or fanatic amateurs are looking to nutritional supplements that are tailored to their needs – their sport, their body type, their fitness goals – in that quest for the elusive PB. Challenges in personalised sports nutrition manufacture For the entrepreneur getting started in sports nutrition manufacturing, the area of personalised sports nutrition is an exciting one. There is an almost infinite number of sport or activities that can be combined with different fitness goals, nutritional requirements and consumer demographics, so the opportunities to get creative with different recipes and marketing tactics are endless. Alongside this, of course, is the tempting prospect to sell these specialised products at premium unit prices! From a manufacturing point of view however, it is often much more difficult to make a wide variety of specialist SKUs. Unlike mass-market production, in which only a few, cheaply made products are sold at cheaper unit prices but in very high volumes to appeal to a broad audience, specialist products are often made in much smaller batches, in line with their niche demand. This can increase the amount of waste created, and a greater diversity of specialist manufacturing equipment is required for multiple dedicated production lines. Lean manufacturing in specialist sports nutrition

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