Glanbia benefit as women’s protein appetite shakes up €90bn market
Glanbia in Kilkenny recently announced plans to shed its meal replacement brand SlimFast after years of struggling sales, highlighting the business’s shift away from pure weight loss to focus on overall health and wellbeing.
A blossoming wellness boom and growing uptake of slimming injections are opening a brand new opportunity for protein shake makers: More female customers.
Women have become an increasingly important customer segment for sports nutrition companies, as demand jumps from both GLP-1 users and a more nebulous — but growing — class of shoppers: Women who care about strength and wellbeing, rather than just thinness.
Female customers had traditionally been “very focused on weight loss”, said Colin Westcott-Pitt, a chief brand officer at Kilkenny-headquartered Glanbia’s Performance Nutrition business. They are now increasingly interested in strength, performance, and cognitive wellbeing.
The Irish group recently announced plans to shed its meal replacement brand SlimFast after years of struggling sales, highlighting the shift away from pure weight loss — which, if desired, can be achieved more easily with GLP-1s — toward a focus on fitness and health products.
“There are different alternatives now for how to go on that journey,” Mr Westcott-Pitt said.
Applied Nutrition, one of Britain’s latest IPOs, went from an 80-20 split of male-to-female customers to a 60-40 ratio after expanding its product range and partnering with media personality Coleen Rooney on a range of health supplements.
Bigger rival Glanbia PLC has seen a similar trend in its lifestyle and sports nutrition segments, which Bloomberg Intelligence estimates is worth $100bn (€89.4bn).
“It’s only when we started really tapping into that consumer base that we realized how big it is, because I underestimated it,” said Applied Nutrition chief executive officer Tom Ryder in an interview.
In its first set of results since its listing, Applied Nutrition reported first-half revenue of £47.6m (€54.7m) — “comfortably ahead” of the £46m guidance provided at the IPO, it said in a statement on Monday.
The Liverpool-based company expects women to make up half of its customer base soon, according to Mr Ryder. He said: “The shift has gone from women who want to be skinny, which is a smaller demographic, to women who want to be healthy, fit, and strong — which is a huge demographic.”
While the seismic change in weight management brought about by Novo Nordisk’s and Eli Lilly’s products ultimately took down SlimFast, it can now be an opportunity for Glanbia and peers.
People on weight-loss shots are losing muscle as well as weight and dealing with nutritional deficiencies — and needing protein.
Though ‘Big Food’ has taken note and is courting those same customers, sports nutrition brands have an advantage.
“By definition, their products are pretty much all pure protein,” said Patrick Higgins, an analyst at Goodbody Stockbrokers. Glanbia’s portfolio, for instance, is “already perfectly positioned” to address the growing GLP-1 market.
Applied Nutrition has developed a product called Complete Protein “with the Ozempic user in mind”, Mr Ryder said.
Mr Higgins said: “GLP-1s, increasing demand for functional benefits from your food like higher protein or higher vitamins and minerals, the backlash against processed foods — all of this stems from this broader health and wellness trend, which is ultimately being driven by the consumer”, leading to a “broadening of the typical users” of sports nutrition products.
This broadening is partly down to “increased awareness around female health,” said Jessica Jackson, the head of product portfolio at THG PLC’s flagship protein shake brand MyProtein.
“We always refer internally to female sports nutrition as being like men’s skincare,” she said in an interview, referring to the simple formulations that have recently evolved as customer demographics change. Social media and sports — in particular increased coverage of women’s sports — are aiding demand too, according to Mr Westcott-Pitt.
Glanbia’s athlete roster for its marketing campaigns includes WNBA star Cameron Brink and English footballer Lauren James.
As demand from women grows, sports nutrition brands are developing new products as well as ways to package and market them.
Smaller pack sizes — an alternative to the inelegant five pound tubs — online protein calculators, and AI-powered personalised recommendations are some of the innovations from the likes of Glanbia, THG, and Applied Nutrition.
Momentum is growing, but there is one major hurdle: The rising price of whey, the liquid that separates from milk during cheese production and is the main ingredient in protein powders.
“It has become clear that market prices for high-end whey have continued to increase to unprecedented levels beyond what we had previously planned for,” Glanbia CEO Hugh McGuire said on the company’s latest earnings call, adding that it is a cost headwind of almost $200m (€178.9m) in 2025.
“Rampant input cost inflation, particularly milk costs, had to be passed through to consumers, skewing growth to pricing even though it has a volume-based growth model,” BI analyst Duncan Fox wrote about Glanbia in a note.
The cost of whey is expected to moderate going into 2026 as more supply becomes available, helping margins, according to Mr McGuire. Looking beyond those short-term snags, the growth runway seems clear.
“Longer term, I don’t see why this protein mega trend doesn’t continue,” Mr Higgins said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised to see that demand for protein kick in like it did in the US across Europe and the rest of the world over the next five, 10 years.”
- Bloomberg
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