The sales estimates in this report are based on US retail sales data provided by SPINS, a market research firm based in Chicago, Illinois, and NBJ, a Boulder, Colorado-based publication of the New Hope Network, an Informa media company that is focused on the natural products industry. NBJ provided estimates of total herbal supplement sales in the United States, as well as sales broken down by retail channel (mass market, natural and health food, and direct sales) and product type (single-herb supplements vs. combination formulas). SPINS provided sales data for the 40 top selling herbal and fungal ingredients in both mainstream
and natural retail channels. In previous years, SPINS collaborated with IRI, a market research firm also based
in Chicago, to determine total mainstream sales for the 40 top-selling herbs. However, the database previously used by IRI was discontinued and, therefore, the mainstream sales figures in this report reflect data provided by SPINS only. In addition to the strong overall sales growth for herbal dietary supplements in 2018, total retail sales increased in each of the three market channels monitored by NBJ in 2018.
For the second year in a row, direct sales of herbal supplements experienced the strongest growth, increasing by 11.8% to a total of $4.480 billion in 2018. NBJ’s mass market channel experienced the second strongest growth in 2018, reaching a total of $1.558 billion, an increase of 7.6% from the previous year. Finally, herbal supplement sales in natural and health food stores totaled $2.804 billion in 2018, according to NBJ, an increase of 6.9% from 2017. The SPINS sales data for individual herbs and fungi discussed in this report reflect sales of dietary supplements in which that herb or fungus is the primary functional ingredient. This includes only products that meet the legal definition of a dietary supplement per the US Food and Drug
Administration (FDA).