Vitamin K2 usage and consumer awareness growing, new survey shows

Photo © AdobeStock.com/Bildgigant

Consumer awareness and usage of vitamin K2 dietary supplements is growing around the globe, a new survey shows. The “ITC Insights—2022 Supplement Consumer Survey” was written/analyzed by the Industry Transparency Center and conducted by Dynata and on 3500 adult dietary supplement consumers in the U.S., China, the UK, Germany, and Italy on March 1-26, 2022. The survey revealed insights about respondents’ usage of and attitudes toward many supplement types, including vitamin K2 supplements. (The Industry Transparency Center is a firm providing insights on ingredient markets like curcumin and prebiotics.)

Up to 62% of survey respondents reported using vitamin K2 supplements and ranked vitamin K2 among their top 10 supplements. There was increasing usage of vitamin K2 in the 18-54 age group compared to the 55+ age group.

Vitamin K2’s growth appears to be global. A press release from vitamin K2 supplier Gnosis by Lesaffre (Marcq-en-Baroeul, France), reporting on the survey results, states, “No single supplement increased usage across every country [in the survey]; however, vitamin K2 was one of the closest to achieving universal growth. K2 also saw a sharp increase in use from 2020-2022.” The top reasons consumers cited for taking vitamin K2 supplements were supporting bone and heart health. Survey data also pointed to additional market opportunities for vitamin K2 in the brain health and mental acuity categories.

In addition, the survey reported, “‘Perceived effectiveness’ of K2 was greater in total supplement users surveyed compared to ‘regular users.’ This suggests to the researchers that future growth is likely as people who do not currently use vitamin K2 regularly have a high perception of it.”

The survey also found consumers associating branded supplement ingredients with the following: quality, safety, trust, efficacy, and clinical validation. Up to 37% of regular supplement users surveyed indicated that they seek out branded ingredients when purchasing products and are willing to pay more for branded ingredients.

In the Gnosis by Lesaffre press release, Xavier Berger, global market manager, stated, “This survey confirms what we see commercially in many ways. Consumers have a high trust and interest in vitamin K2, especially those looking for specific health benefits. It is also nice to see that ‘quality,’ ‘efficacy’ (i.e., proof that it works), and ‘safety’ are recognized in the branded ingredients.”