At Natural Products Expo West 2022 that just concluded in Anaheim, row upon row of supplements companies showed innovation remains the coin of the realm.

Among the trends seen at the show are the continuation of the movement to non-pill formats like beverage shots and gummies. Shots have traveled far afield from the traditional energy drinks and now are suitable for a broad range of health conditions from sleep and stress to immunity and cognition.

The hemp CBD sector in particular has fully embraced gummies. This is great news for consumers because the OG tincture bottles with oils for consumers were a little messy plus shoppers could not be counted on to get the dosage exactly right when squirting oil from a dropper under the tongue.

The hemp world continues to innovate at a rapid clip—in some areas even lapping traditional supplements as with supply-chain traceability and transparency as with QR codes that lead consumers to testing lab results vouchsafing ingredient quality. But thats not all. Some CBD companies, seeing the bloom come off the rose, have pivoted to become straight-up supplement companies. It started with formulating CBD with complementary ingredients, then brand-new SKUs that contain no hemp at all.

Outside of hempland, in addition to new delivery formats, new ingredients—and new uses for old ingredients—are being discovered from around the world.

In this time of the Covid pandemic, one of the leading health conditions consumers are clamoring for is the nootropic areas of stress, sleep and anxiety—and in particular, the relatively soft benefit of mood.