Ingredient of the Year: Sports Nutrition
Sports and active nutrition is no longer just for elite athletes — it’s now a lifestyle category serving both performance-driven individuals and everyday active consumers.
This award celebrates the most innovative branded or own-label supplements, functional foods, and beverages designed to support energy, endurance, recovery, hydration, muscle health, and joint support.
Today’s products reflect cutting-edge developments in personalized nutrition, clean label formulations, and multi-functional formats — from protein gummies and hydration powders to creatine RTDs and nootropic-enhanced blends. Ingredients like beta-alanine, tart cherry extract, magnesium, L-theanine, adaptogens, and functional mushrooms are being used to support both physical and cognitive performance. With growing interest in bioactive compounds, gut-brain axis support, and holistic wellness, this category honours those redefining sports nutrition through science-led innovation, format creativity, and consumer relevance.
Our Judges will look at how your ingredient meets specific needs and will base their scores on your evidence to demonstrate:
- A genuine consumer demand or requirement based upon a common issue or risk factor
- Solid scientific evidence to demonstrate a unique nutritional solution to this need or problem – including peer reviewed data to back up any performance or health claims made
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Commercial success and engagement from your core target market(s). Give numbers and examples of sales and applications that are available in the market
- What gives your ingredient the ‘X factor’ – something that makes it stand out from the crowd and edge out the competition (including evidence to back up claims)
To view the requirements for this category, click to download
Entries for the NutraIngredients Europe Awards, Ingredient of the Year categories are required to have the ingredient in a finished product that is commercially available in Europe.
- All entries need to abide to our Entry Terms & Conditions
- Once all entries have been received they will be reviewed by the NutraIngredients Europe Awards Judging Panel made up of independent judges from the industry.
- Our 2026 finalists will be confirmed and notified in end of March 2026.
- Our 2026 winners will be announced during an awards' presentation in Barcelona on Wednesday May 6, 2026.