Industry
Our Industry Has Gone Insane
The supplement industry is in crisis: supply shortages, skyrocketing prices, and questionable business practices are the norm. A clear-eyed look at reality—not marketing promises—has never been more necessary.
Industry
The supplement industry is in crisis: supply shortages, skyrocketing prices, and questionable business practices are the norm. A clear-eyed look at reality—not marketing promises—has never been more necessary.
Line items
If you follow us regularly on Instagram (@edubily), you've probably seen that due to a "sunflower shortage," we may need to replace sunflower lecithin with soy lecithin in our whey protein for the coming months. We asked our followers what they thought about it, since some people have reservations about soy. Some concerns are justified, most are not. From a quality perspective, nothing would actually change.
The good news: hardly anyone had a fundamental objection. Feel free to send us your opinion on this via email. We use lecithin in our whey to instantize it and achieve perfect solubility. The added benefit is that lecithins—phospholipids—are a major component of our cell membranes, so when we consume lecithins, we're doing something good for our cells and our brain.
What we really want to say: the world has gone mad. We ourselves can't always pinpoint exactly where product shortages come from or what influences availability. Here's another example: this premium whey from Ireland, which we absolutely love because of its outstanding quality, just doubled in price at the wholesale level. Just like that, because all the warehouses are emptied out. So if you're wondering why our whey suddenly cost €5 more, now you know. Mind you, this is already hitting a pain point for us, since whey is expensive to source, but nobody wants to pay €50 or €60 per kilo. Let that sink in for a moment. At least our popular vanilla flavor, just like our multi supplement, has finally been back in stock for weeks.
We could give you several more examples. How about creatine? That's been in short supply worldwide for months. Doesn't matter if it's from Germany or the Far East. The outcome is uncertain. In general, you've probably noticed that we often have to wait a very long time for product shipments. This is how things have been for us for quite some time now. Delivery dates get pushed back week after week, so we can't even tell you when a product will be back in stock.
Since we've been in the supplement industry for nearly 10 years, we know the sector and current developments pretty well. That's why we're all the more bewildered when companies suddenly show up with "regional organic collagen," given the current situation and the already completely dysfunctional producer landscape. Who's supposed to believe that? The industry—much like world politics—just keeps getting crazier. There's no end in sight.
Some companies market their standard cellulose capsules as if they were the ultimate, exclusive vegan superfood. Meanwhile, they create their own clean label—increasingly, supplement companies aren't letting themselves be evaluated externally anymore. They simply give themselves their own quality seal—brilliant because it saves money, terrible for the customer. Of course, the ingredients of these products are often "hand-selected" in "outstanding quality" from "Okinawa." Or something like that. How is any of this even possible these days?
A similar example is the recent fraud accusation against musician and YouTuber Fynn Kliemann. He looks a bit like the nice eco-type from Prenzlberg. Long experience shows: with people like this, you have to look especially closely. Because those who frequently present themselves as especially "green, sustainable, and human-friendly" are often the worst business misanthropes and very cunning. They deceive and lie—the customer believes them and ends up punished with poor quality at inflated prices. And he thinks he's done something good. There's even a technical term for this approach now: greenwashing.
Important caveat: everything has its limits. Supplement customers shouldn't believe in utopias. There are no perfect products and no perfect conditions. Anyone trying to sell people something "ecological" from the Indian hinterland—of course, because the raw material is supposedly so special from there—is operating in the gray area of a lie. Because even if these operations were bio-certified or had similar certifications, that wouldn't mean their quality standards were high or that the farmers on the ground were living decently. Customers need to finally understand that there are limits to the ideal vision of a product, its origins, and its production.
We're certainly not flawless, and more than one person has complained about our rough edges, saying we sometimes choose our words poorly. That may be true, but one thing we definitely are: honest. Just as it is in the world and in society, serious problems are simmering in our beloved field of supplementation and lifestyle optimization—and have been for quite some time. Why do we write this newsletter at all? It's no joke: we have to wake up. We need to become more realistic on one hand—and on the other, we sometimes need to look much more carefully.
Fortunately, more and more people are becoming aware of this.
