While many customers shop Healthy Ways in Lodi, CA for its great product selection and helpful advice, they are vocal when staring down what they feel is an overload.“Most of the time our customers listen to our recommendations because They know that we work with them individually to find the right product for their specific issue, but we get our share of complaints about having to take a lot of pills,” said Keri Blanchard, owner of the 1,600-square-foot store that dedicates 70 percent of its stock to a healthy variety of supplements. “If we can offer solid products that cover a lot of bases and require less pills, the happier our customers are.”

Enter combination products.

“Combination formulas afford consumers not only convenience, but the ability to increase their nutritional supplementation without adding—what can be for many people—a lot more pills, creating ‘pill fatigue.’ In addition, combination formulas help eliminate confusion of ‘what to take,’ offer ‘right choice’ solutions and deliver a price point advantage,” said Elliot Lasky, vice president and general manager of the natural products group at New Yorkbased American Health. “The goal for us as manufacturers, in conjunction with our retail partners, is to get consumers on their right nutritional path while making it cost effective for them to follow recommendations.”

While offering customers more bang for their bucks, combination products are not always the easiest sell, according to retailers. These products often Create specific questions for customers, requiring careful research on retailers’ parts to select the right products to stock from manufacturers who will give them the support they need.

Combination Concerns

Even though combination products are meant to provide an economical solution that eliminates pill fatigue, a common complaint heard in Cambridge Naturals is about the number of pills customers take on a daily basis, even when taking combination products. In addition, Kris Berg, general manager of the 3,200-square-foot store in Cambridge, MA, described some combination products as “kitchen sinky.” “If you have a joint product that has 25 ingredients, is 10 mg of turmeric relevant?” she posed. “Or then you have to take six to reach studied doses, which defeats the purpose of pill fatigue.”

“Sometimes less is more. It’s easy to turn some customers off if you have too many ingredients,” agreed Brandon Bert, co-founder and president of Californiabased Amazing Grass. “When formulating new products, we always keep these important customers in mind.”

Taylor Hamilton, president of Tunies in Coral Springs, FL, noted that combination products are often a great fit for newbie vitamin and supplement shoppers.“First-time vitamin users are open to the idea of combination products because they are primarily interested in taking as few pills a day as possible,” he said, but noted that once the first-timers become accustomed to taking supplements, they’ll often transition from the convenience to what he sees as the effectiveness of single-nutrient supplements.“You can only squash so much into a pill. With combination products, often times you’re reducing the potency and potential effectiveness of a product,” said Hamilton.

“The challenge is creating a combination of products where

A) the dosage replicates or actually increases what you would find in single-serve products, and

B) more importantly, bringing together combinations that actually work synergistically,” said American Health’s Lasky.

“Anytime that you are creating combination products it’s a fine balance between effective dosing levels and getting combinations that make effective sense.” American Health recently introduced Ester-C® 1,000 mg with Probiotics (6 billion), which brought together its 1,000 mg Ester-C with other supportive ingredients that consumers are looking for as part of their daily health regimen, Lasky explained. “As we know, probiotics are beneficial not only for digestion, but for overall immune health. Our ability to deliver ‘the ultimate’ immune-based formula is not only the result of being able to bring these ingredients together, but remaining committed to creating truly sciencebased solutions where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

Reserveage Organics in Florida also noted that this balance is important for creating effective products. “Certain ingredients are better designed as stand-alone products, especially when high doses are required. This scenario creates limitations and makes it challenging to add support nutrients,” said Rob Maru, the company’s chief innovation officer. “We’ve learned that combination products work well when you combine ingredients that complement each other and create synergy.”

Reserveage recently launched its Sleep Nutrition product, which combines melatonin to regulate the sleep/wake cycle, theanine and passion flower for relaxation, and a combination of herbs that support healthy liver function, which is important as the liver is most active during sleep. “Data suggests that depressed liver function can negatively impact the quality of sleep,” said Maru, adding that the company is the first to offer this triple-action mechanism in a sleep formula.

Innovating With Absorption

When taking on new products at Tunies, the No. 1 issue for Hamilton is that the products are effective. One combination product that’s been well received by his customers is American Bioscience’s ImmPower. So when the company enhanced the proven product with vitamin D3, Hamilton saw it as a natural fit for Tunies’ shelves.

“ImmPower was already a very popular product. It’s been around a long time and has traction and recognition with our customers,” he said. “Adding D3 seems like a natural extension with all of the recent press and research being released about vitamin D’s benefits.”

ImmPowerD3™ combines the proprietary fermented mushroom supplement, active hexose correlated compound (AHCC) with vitamin D3 cholecalciferol, which provides the foundation of immune system health. According to David Wales, president of the New York-based American BioScience, this is truly a unique combination product that offers consumers two of the most scientifically proven, powerful immune supplements in one capsule.

“Published research shows the Benefits of different ingredients, vitamins, minerals, mushroom and herbal extracts, as well as favorable studies for a number of compounds. Rather than take a pill for each compound, where it’s practical, it makes sense to combine them into one pill,” he said. “Also for certain ingredients, like those found in many of our products, research illustrates a synergy, where the combination works better than each compound separately.The development of combination supplements should follow from the research on the individual ingredients as well as research on proprietary combinations.”

After press began circulating about coral calcium, Healthy Ways’ Blanchard anticipated the influx of questions from her loyal customer base. She began researching her options all the while keeping absorption as a top qualifier, and ultimately selected Nevada-based Coral LLC’s Coral Complex, which offers combinations of calcium, magnesium, trace minerals and vitamin D.

“I sought to find the best coral calcium I could, because my customers trust that I’m stocking the highest quality products that they can trust will work,” said Blanchard. “One of my reps recommended Coral Complex and my research showed how the product offered better absorption. Ever since it has been one of our best sellers.”

One of the reasons the product is so effective, according to Alberto Galdamez, Coral LLC’s director of marketing, is the addition of vitamin D3 as cholecalceriferol for optimum absorption.“Vitamin D3 is necessary to charge the receptors in the small intestine that are instrumental in the uptake of calcium,” he said, noting that the product benefits users more than just with their bone health. “People associate minerals with bone health, but the truth is, without adequate mineral consumption, all systems of the body suffer. The heart is surrounded in a pericardial sac of calcium ions. The nervous system depends on calcium and magnesium.Magnesium alone contributes to more than 300 enzymatic activities in the body. Children, adults and especially the elderly need minerals for optimum health and longevity.”

The company’s newest introduction, Cell EnerG, is a nutritious antioxidant that dissolves in water to create a delicious mineral orange drink. “Children and adults love it. We are not aware of a similar product on the market that contains 74 minerals in their natural state and with the same platform combined with antioxidants that dissolve in water,” Galdamez added.

Going Greens

While Cambridge Naturals still sells considerable volume of single-nutrient supplements and single herbs, Berg said she has noticed an upswing in sales of combination formulas, “especially in the joint/inflammation, digestion and greens categories.” But Berg also noted that digestion and greens are two categories that are beginning to overlap.

“With greens, customers have moved away from the plain barley or wheat grasses, and more to the greens/herbs/probiotic blends,” said Berg. “The greens combos and doing especially well because customers love that they are getting all the single nutrients, energy, alkalizing, minerals and good bacteria.”

She credits the positive response to a few things: having to generally take fewer pills and keep track of fewer bottles and what they’re for; they also tend to work more quickly so customers stick with them because they see results.
“In terms of the greens, customers tend to talk about how they like to make their healthy shake and that it makes them ‘feel’ good, and I think it makes the customer more pro-active as opposed to just popping a pill and assuming it’s doing what it’s supposed to.”

“We’ve seen the demand increase for combination greens products over the past five years,” said Amazing Grass’ Bert, offering the recent reformulation of the company’s best-selling product as an example. “We reformulated our Green SuperFood formula five years ago to meet consumer demand for antioxidant superfruits like açai, probiotics and digestive enzymes.Before our reformulation, we found that many consumers were purchasing separate probiotic, digestive enzyme and superfruit supplements, and now many of those same customers get everything they are looking for in our Green SuperFood.”

Another Amazing Grass product that crosses categories is its Amazing Meal, which combines plant-based protein with green superfoods and probiotics, and appeals to consumers in the protein category as well as weight loss, according to Bert. “Furthermore, it spans into joint health, cholesterol, immunity, etc., since the plant-based superfoods provide proven benefits that cross many categories. With Amazing Meal, we’ve brought in new consumers that shopped other categories into the greens category and Amazing Grass brand.”

Evolving Staples

Berg’s experience has shown some classic joint ingredients giving way to new standouts. “In terms of the joint category, customers want their fish oil and their glucosamine and their curcumin all in one convenient bottle,” she said. “The sales especially of the classic glucosamine/chondroitin/msm have fallen off and given way to the formulas with fish oil and anti-inflammatories.”

Fish oil, in particular Nordic Naturals’ fish oils, has been a staple in the popular combination products in Sunny Bridge Natural Foods in McMurray, PA, according to Supplement Manager Vicky Thompson. “A lot of our customers are looking to take less pills, so they’re asking for combination products.They feel like they’re getting more for their dollars, and they have less pills to remember,” she said, noting that products for cardiovascular health, blood sugar and joints are top categories. “Nordic Naturals’ Omega LDL with Red Yeast Rice and CoQ10 is a great example Getting those ingredients in just three soft gels is something my customers can handle.”

“Products that have numerous ingredients that support inflammation as well as healthy heart and cholesterol levels have become very popular. One of the most challenging issues with combination products is being able to include therapeutic levels of key ingredients while keeping the daily serving of tablets or capsules to a minimum,” said Marci van der Meulen, national sales manager of California-based Nordic Naturals. “We do extensive research with retailers and consumers prior to coming up with product concepts to learn what is driving consumer buying patterns. Having our finger on the pulse with our retailers helps us to collaborate and create products that support a consumer need.”

Nordic’s most recent launch, Ultimate Omega Xtra, was also created with customers in mind.“There has been a host of emerging research on the importance of daily supplementation with vitamin D. In addition, there is emerging research on the need for higher levels of EPA/DHA,” van der Meulen explained. “Ultimate Omega Xtra addresses a demographic looking for the convenience of higher concentrations of both EPA and DHA, as well as vitamin supplementation.”

Informative Partnerships

One issue Thompson noted hearing a lot from customers shopping for combination products concerns overlap. “Say they’re taking 5,000 Ius of vitamin D. Since just about every product has vitamin D now, they worry how a new product will up their Ius and how to handle that.” As customer service is something Sunny Bridge is skilled at providing, the staff is prepared, but it is a process.

“They want to make sure they can take everything in the product due to their specific health concerns, and we take that time to go over everything in detail with them.”

To that end, what makes a great partner for Sunny Bridge Natural Foods is supplier education and demos. “If our staff understands in detail what a product does, they’re much more comfortable talking to the customer about it,” said Thompson. “When the staff is comfortable talking to the customer, then customer is much more at ease with the purchase. After that, the repeat purchase comes when the customer is satisfied with the results.”

Amazing Grass’ Bert acknowledged that point, noting that it’s to his company’s advantage to offer the in-store education and training it does. “Properly training store personnel is essential and starts with a good educational program from the manufacturer. Product demoing to staff and consumers is also critical for understanding the value of combination products,” he said. “It’s important for retailers to try the products and become familiar with them and how they personally feel the products benefit them. Having an employee speak from their own experience with your products is one of the best forms of education to end consumers.”