The role of flexible plastics in the UK’s fast-growing supplements market

By Elliot Hyams, Director at SPS Pouches

The supplements market has exploded in recent years. Now worth more than £3bn in the UK, it is continuing to grow driven by sports nutrition, functional foods and the wider health and wellbeing trend. Dozens of new brands launch every month, usually small founder-led teams testing themselves online before they think about retail, and choosing the correct packaging can be a major factor in how successful a business becomes.

Plastic tubs and bottles have long been the default for protein powders, capsules and gummies, and while they are familiar and easy to source, they are also bulky and expensive to ship. For a new brand competing on Amazon or Shopify, that extra weight pushes every order into the small parcel category, adding fulfilment cost that quickly eats into already slim margins. Alternatively, a stand up pouch can often be mailed as a large letter instead, reducing postage costs dramatically, and when businesses are selling vitamins or adaptogens that difference can decide whether the business model works or whether they are losing money on each sale. Pouches also cut material weight, reduce freight costs and still look great on the shelf. With digital printing brands can order smaller runs, update designs quickly and avoid cash tied up in stock. For startups trying to survive in competitive categories, that kind of flexibility is often the difference between growth and failure.

The need for brands to be able to make credible sustainability claims adds another layer of complexity to choosing the correct packaging, but this is also where the debate gets really muddled. Compostables attract a lot of attention on LinkedIn and at trade shows, but the reality is that they rarely work for SMEs. The cost gap with these innovative materials is problematic, particulalry in categories where packaging already takes up a high proportion of overall cost - when compostable materials are two to five times the price of widely available PP or PE the numbers simply don’t add up. 

A good practical example of this is in the supplements industry where competition is particularly high and market entrants generally start at a micro scale with 1,000 units of packaging. A startup trying to sell vitamin packaging on Amazon will not survive long if it is paying double for each unit of packaging or even investing thousands in high minimum quantities for compostables, while its competitors are using recyclable plastics that are cheaper and widely available. The claims may look good on social media, but in reality they are starting at a significant disadvantage. 

What often gets overlooked is how much innovation has gone into flexible plastics in the last few years. Mono-material films are no longer just basic laminates. Developments such as MDO technology combined with barriers like EVOH are delivering the barrier performance required for sensitive products while still being recyclable. Matte finishes and specialist coatings now make pouches feel premium, and HP Indigo presses have pushed digital print quality to a point where even short runs can rival gravure. These improvements mean startups can launch with packaging that looks credible, performs technically and remains affordable in the small volumes they need.

For founders, cutting through all of this nuance is not easy, which is why resources like this guide to starting a supplement brand are important — they show how packaging decisions directly affect credibility, compliance and cost when bringing a new product to market.

Plastics are not standing still. These industry-led innovations in mono-PE films, barrier coatings and digital printing are already filtering into the formats SMEs use every day, because they are designed to be commercially viable. For supplement startups the calculation is straightforward – they need packaging that works technically, commercially and environmentally – and recyclable stand up pouches now deliver on all three. 

The opportunity for the plastics industry now is to continue to prove that we can adapt to new sustainability demands and remain central to the continuing growth of consumer markets like health and food supplements.