April 28, 2025 – Functional health has emerged as a major focus across Asia Pacific, shaping consumer behavior towards health and wellbeing. With lifestyles becoming busier, the demand for functional health solutions, such as customized nutrition, fitness, and wellness initiatives, continues to grow. Innova’s 360 research highlights consumer attitudes towards functional health, consumer behavior, functional health product launches, innovations, and what may develop in the future.
Functional Health Market Factors
Macro forces, such as increasing health pressures, uncertainty and volatility, and the rise of the aging population, influence 53% of consumers to take action to live healthier. Functional health benefits are widespread, and products with functional nutrition claims show 10% growth, outpacing the total food and beverage (4%) and supplements launches (3%) over the past four years. Although supplements are functional in nature, the category growth is modest and varies by year.
Health and wellbeing are top spending priorities, reflecting the growing health trends in consumer behavior. Regular food and beverages are the top choice for ensuring targeted intake, especially among older generations, and nutrition-fortified food and supplements also appeal to the APAC consumer. Health trends indicate that Generation Z and Millennials are driving interest in products that are nutritionally fortified.
Functional Health Brands and Companies
Coles, Woolworths, Meiji, Carmans, and Milo are the leading brands for new product launches. Apart from from Australian private label company Coles, no single brand accounts for even 1% of launches in the past year. This demonstrates that the functional health market is fragmented, making it difficult for brands to stand out. Market leaders have remained relatively stable in launches over the past few years.
Supplement launches are led by a combination of global and regional companies. In contrast to global supplement trends, private label supplements are less common in the APAC region. Metagenics, Conba, and Go Healthy led the market during the same period.
Innova’s Trends in Action
Innova’s top trend of 2025, ‘Ingredients and Beyond,’ highlights the importance of elevating quality beyond ingredients. Consumers are aligning with this trend as they perceive higher ingredient quality in private label and supermarket brands in Asia. Name brands continue to earn the confidence of consumers when considering health. However, budget constraints might push the younger generation as well as boomers toward store brands due to lower prices.
Health trends indicate that 60% of consumers believe personalized and customized plans are more effective. This reflects another trend, ‘Precision Wellness,’ highlighting that information culture is raising the bar and challenging brands to meet the targeted nutritional needs at any life stage. Millennials are most eager to try personalized solutions and most likely to believe in the efficacy of personalized solutions.
Functional Health Product Launch Trends
1 in 7 food and beverage launches in APAC feature functional nutritional claims, with India leading the market in the past year. Many smaller Asian markets show rapid growth during the same period. Consumers associate natural ingredients and nutritional value with health.
Supplements are well-established and most widely launched in China. India displays strong growth and is consistent with high levels of consumer interest in supplements. Health drives supplementation, followed by immunity and preventing diseases. Fastest-growing supplement claims like skin health, energy align with Asian consumer interests and supplement manufacturers are positioning their products to meet this interest.
Consumer Functional Health Preferences
More than half of consumers in APAC, led by Indonesians, are proactive about their health. They prioritize a healthier lifestyle, feeling well, mentally healthy, and energetic. They take action to live healthily, like eating a healthy diet, which also helps them age well.
APAC consumers recognize the connection between diet, nutrition, personalization, and health. All generations, particularly Millennials, focus on health. In addition to being proactive, Millennials are most likely to prevent health conditions by sticking to targeted nutrition plans.
Health trends reveal that Indian and Indonesian consumers are the most active purchasers of functional products. Only a small percentage of Asian consumers do not purchase food and beverage products for mental health. The Asian marketplace offers opportunities to companies that can communicate their product benefits and demonstrate that their products are effective.
What’s Next in Functional Health Trends?
Consumers in APAC are seeking functional products with different benefits based on their health, age, and lifestyle. Brands can focus on innovation that bundles several nutrition benefits, like balanced nutrition with functional health, to enhance their offerings. They can consider social media and other types of campaigns and on-pack communication to capture the attention of their target consumers.
This article is based on Innova’s Trump’s Consumers’ Attitude to Functional Health in Asia Pacific report. This report is available to purchase or with an Innova Reports subscription. Reach out to find out more
