Procter & Gamble launches Voost fizzy vitamins into business that's already bubbling

Procter & Gamble Co.’s vitamin and supplements business is soaring, thanks to a product mainly aimed at older adults. Now, the launch of Voost effervescent vitamin and supplement pills may help it attract health-conscious millennials and others.

The brand, which P&G is expanding to the U.S. after a successful run in Australia, has tablets that come in small gum- or candy-like packs and can be dropped in to flavor bottled water.

“We acquired Voost in April of 2021, because it was one of the fastest-growing vitamin brands in Australia and had these great points of difference, especially for the U.S. market,” said Jeff Cullinane, P&G senior brand director, North America Personal Health Care. “It’s a novel form that we thought could make a really big impact in the U.S.”

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While effervescent vitamins are 10% to 20% of the market in much of the world, they make up less than 1% of the market in the U.S., Germany and Mexico, so the brand has plenty of runway for growth, he said.

The target market is primarily millennials, Cullinane said. “What’s great about this form is that it fits so well into their lifestyle. This is not a form where you wake up at 8 in the morning and drink 20 ounces of Voost as fast as you can. It’s more part of the millennial stereotype of always carrying around water bottles from meeting to meeting, and you can put one of our Voost tablets in.”

The fastest-growing vitamin form in the U.S. in recent years has been gummy vitamins. But Cullinane said the average gummy has six grams of sugar and 50 calories. “They taste good, but that’s a pretty big trade-off,” he said. “With Voost, we’re able to have this delicious, nutritious experience with no sugar and 10 calories.”

Voost comes on the heels of last year’s launch of Nervive, a P&G supplement designed largely for an older audience to alleviate chronic nerve pain. It expands a brand previously sold mainly in Europe and acquired as part of P&G’s 2018 acquisition of Merck’s over-the-counter health business.

P&G has been doing well overall, with organic sales growth of 10% last quarter and no signs of consumer or retailer resistance to inflation-driven price hikes. Its vitamins and nutrition business has been a disproportionate driver of that growth.

P&G's sales in vitamins and nutrition are up more than 30% each of the past four quarters versus the year-ago periods, according to IRI data from Evercore ISI. Nervive has been a big part of that, capturing about 0.4% of the vitamins and supplements market for the 52 weeks ended April 21, according to data from Numerator, which also covers online sales.