5HT #121: why there’s no limit for gummies, pickle-flavored everything, and 3 more

I’ve written about the gummy era before, and it’s far from over. In fact, it’s growing 🚀.

AG1, the company that spent 16 years convincing us to drink green pond water, just launched gummies. It's their first new product format ever. To me, it's a pretty clear admission that our scoop, shake, slurp ritual has a ceiling.

Because the gummy people are winning.

Today, even AG1 admits gummies make up about 25% of the supplement market 📈. Unilever just bought Grüns (which basically started as AG1 in gummy form) in a $1.2B deal, just a few years after the company was founded. Hims & Hers put actual prescription medicine, minoxidil, in a gummy and says 88% of surveyed customers take it every day. Adherence to long-term medications has historically hovered around 50%, so 88% is unreal.

When I was running Greatist, I was admittedly a gummy skeptic. I thought it was like, idk, candy 🍬 cosplaying as healthcare?

Then I spent a couple of years on a Nutritional Council for Church & Dwight. At the time, they owned Vitafusion and L'il Critters, and I got an inside look at how seriously they took gummies as a form factor. I was in the room when we came up with melatonin gummies being the next, big thing—and I believe Church & Dwight was the first to launch them. 

Back then, they claimed Vitafusion was the #1 vitamin brand (not just gummy vitamin brand) in the country. Seeing just how mainstream these products had become started changing my mind. These weren’t just a niche, fun thing for people that didn’t like pills!

Emerging science also started changing my mind, too. Church & Dwight claimed better absorption with gummies because there’s, like, food with it. One study showed vitamin D3 gummies were doubly (‼️) more bioavailable than tablets. Others found that they're at least bioequivalent. There should be more science done on this, but basically it does seem like gummies may be better (or are at least not worse at getting what’s inside them into you).

But by far the most compelling argument for gummies is much simpler: people actually take them. 

I've seen this happen with my kiddos, who I've been trying to get to eat more vitamins. We started with Hiya (a great product with even better marketing), but lately we’ve landed on gummies from Nordic Naturals. Even with “no sugar,” my girls freakin’ love these things. They think of it as their nightly dessert course.

And I don't think adults are that much more complicated. Even I regularly take gummy creatine vitamins when I don’t have my typical lunch smoothie with creatine powder. I started with Create (basically popularized this) and now take Legion’s (I like the Green Apple flavor especially).

Basically, the best supplement is the one you take, and gummies are ones people keep taking.

Okay, so consumer demand is clearly super high. And I actually think it’s only going to get higher. Super serious science-forward brands like Timeline are already releasing gummy versions of products like Urolithin A that previously only lived in powders and capsules. A company I helped start called Elo Health transitioned to offering their full stack of personalized vitamin recommendations into ONE cool-looking, stacked gummy. 

Point is: I’d take the bet that we could get to 50% of the market taking gummies. 

So is there any limit?

The biggest one IMO is chemistry. 👩🏻‍🔬🧪 Because there’s only so much you can actually fit into a gummy.

Even with AG1, you're supposed to take 8 (!) gummies a day to get all 50 of its ingredients. But do I think people will take 30+ gummies every day if we gummify everything? No. (I wouldn’t.) There's almost certainly a limit on how many people will take per day, mostly because there can be quite a lot of sugar (or sugar substitutes) and you can only carry around so much.

And while I think more medicine will come in gummy form, there’s a limit there too. Low-dose, stable drugs could totally be gummies—think statins, finasteride, and other daily meds people already take. That’s ABSOLUTELY going to happen and a huge opportunity for pharma imo. The high-dose, fragile stuff probably won’t, though.

Unless someone fixes this. If anyone you know is working on improving how much of these ingredients you can get into a gummy, let me know—or start the business yourself, all you chemist 5HTers!

Plus, worth saying there’s a serious risk that gummies don't actually contain the active ingredient they say they do. Take creatine. SuppCo recently independently tested a bunch of popular creatine gummies and found four of the six essentially failed: two contained no detectable creatine, while two contained only trace amounts—nowhere near the labeled effective dose. 👎 (Friendly reminder to always do research before buying random supplements on Amazon!)

Bottom line: Gummies are winning and I think there’s a very high ceiling. The future of supplements may be much more gummy-focused than people realize (with chemistry the only real limitation for now).

I was honored when friend Liz Krieger reached out about an article she was writing for The New York Times and wanted my take on why people seem so comfortable injecting themselves with needles. I was disappointed to hear my quotes ultimately didn’t make it into the article, but that's the biz, as they say. 🤷‍♂️

That said, I continue to think the topic is really fascinating and, frankly, deserved more space than even the NYT article gave it. Because, think about it, why is it that people are sooo comfortable injecting themselves to the extent that nearly 1 in 7 Americans have used a GLP-1? 

Look, I'm not risk-averse. I'm risk-loving. I'm happy to do weird stuff and experiment. Buuut every week, when I inject my little microdose of tirzepatide, I hate the needle part. I'm always a littleee scared I'm going to do something wrong. Sure, I've gotten more comfortable having done it for a year-plus, but it’s still not great. 

So I find it pretty astonishing that, in a world where you basically can't get people to do anything, millions are now casually injecting themselves at home. So how did this happen? And what does this mean?

Here’s my take that didn’t make it into the NYT: 👇

💉 People often point to Covid, but I don't think that’s the link. Covid vaccines—and people's reactions to them—were wrapped up in trust in government and institutions. I don’t see how that’s relevant here. Plus no one was self-administering Covid vaccines.

💉 IMO, it all started with Botox. People's willingness to inject themselves with botulinum toxin helped normalize the idea of elective injections, especially as celebs became increasingly open about doing it. That was the first major signal (and why Serena Williams' x Ro Super Bowl commercial this year felt like such a big deal).

💉 That, and GLP-1s really freaking work. The downside of injecting yourself is far, far outweighed by the benefits people experience, to the point where a little needle starts to feel like NBD. Basically: the ROI is just too good.

And now we've gone waaaay beyond GLP-1s. People are injecting themselves with peptides they don't even know work—all for the marketed (but not clinically proven) benefits. Like the NYT, I find this shift in consumer behavior (er, tolerance?) profoundly interesting and worth paying attention to.

The takeaway for builders is this: We've spent years assuming needles are a dealbreaker for consumers. Maybe they aren't anymore. In a world of form factors, it may be worth considering more things in injection form for willing consumers. (Just know I may not be the first person to sign up.)

According to the WSJ, everyone loves pickles 🥒. From pickle-infused wine to pickle-juice coffee to, er, pickle-flavored ice cream, it’s looking like these briny veggies are a pretty big dill lately. (Nailed it.)

And that includes my oldest daughter Isla, who started Kindergarten this week… and announced to us this week that pickles are her favorite food! 😆

So if gummies (and needles 😬) are so popular, why did I make my new CPG co Fixie Dust a powder? 

Partly science, partly marketing. 

On the science side, Fixie Dust is designed with efficacious doses of nootropics to support focus and calm energy. Think Neuro Gum or Magic Mind, built for that 2pm witching hour when your brain has too many tabs open. 😵‍💫

When it comes to nootropics, science suggests sublingual—underneath your tongue 👅—can be more effective. And it’ll hit you faster. In my experience, I feel Fixie Dust within five to 10 minutes. Calm energy without feeling like an afternoon energy drink or shot of caffeine.

You can find some of these ingredients elsewhere, buuut putting them into a grown-up Pixy Stix is built around a core marketing tactic I’m betting on. I call it The Pour.

Fixie Dust comes in a long stick pack that looks like a Pixy Stix and goes directly into your mouth, on (or under) your tongue—no water required. It’s an experience built for virality.

The idea is super simple: 

1. Tear. 
2. Tongue out 
3. Pour. 
4. Fly.

And now, 🥁 presenting 🥁 The Pour for the first time (with a prototype of the Fixie Dust stick, just missing branding):

I think the pour will be a really memorable, attention-grabbing moment on social. It looks different, feels a little nostalgic, and should be instantly recognizable in the feed. I plan to orient a lot of the brand around that moment.

Will it work? Tbd! But that’s part of the fun of building this thing in public.

And we are very close 🤏. I’m expecting a formal launch in November, with a pre-launch (hopefully) coming in October. So, yes, expect a lot more Fixie Dust 🧚 around here!

Speaking of… do you have a li’l following on social media and want to be an early tester? We’re looking for folks willing to try Fixie Dust early and post some videos of them doing The Pour. Just reply to this email if willing.

I talk about Ozlo Sleep Buds all the freaking time because I genuinely think they’ve been a bedtime game changer. The best way to describe them is AirPods built for sleep. (See how useful brand comparisons can be? 😜) They play white noise to help you fall asleep and double as an alarm to wake you up (which my wife Sara reallyyy appreciates.)

I’m already obsessed, so tbh, I wasn't expecting Ozlo to update the product anytime soon. Buuut they just came out with Ozlo Sleep Buds 2—and they made them even better.

As much as I love the originals, they had a few drawbacks:

The new Ozlo Sleep Buds 2 basically took all the feedback I think everyone had and addressed every single one.

I’m very impressed by how well they listened to feedback and built a genuinely better version of an already-great product. 

Worth saying: If you’re worried about not being able to hear (which is something I worry about sometimes), I personally don’t turn up the white noise fully. I keep mine at 50%. It’s juuuust enough to help me sleep. 👍

To be clear, this isn’t sponsored by them or anything. I’m just a big fan of the product and an even bigger fan of brands listening to customer feedback!

Most clicked last week: my Alzheimer’s & Dementia Prevention Special Report 🫶

👋 Who are you again? I’m Derek Flanzraich, and I’m in the business of healthyish. I founded two venture-backed startups–Greatist (👍) and Ness (👎)—and helped dozens of brands you know grow including Ro, GoodRx, Midi, BetterHelp, and LMNT. I now run Healthyish Content, plus a few other healthyish things (like Fixie Dust, launching this fall).

Every Thursday, I share what’s hot, what’s not, and what’s next in consumer health. (Disclosure: I invest in and advise companies in this space—when I cover one, I'll say so.) I sometimes add affiliate links, but they influence my picks zero.

See something smart, strange, or seriously overhyped? Hit reply, I respond to every email.