The need is nutritional, not clinical.
People eating far less than they used to have a straightforward problem: the same nutritional requirements in a fraction of the volume. That is a nutrition question, and it is one supplements have answered for other groups for decades.
It is also why the opportunity is wider than it first looks. Protein to protect lean mass, fibre for digestion, electrolytes for hydration, and a broad micronutrient base are all ordinary supplement categories. What is new is the reason someone reaches for them and the order they think about them in.
Brands that treat this as a nutrition category tend to build something durable. Brands that treat it as a medication accessory tend to build something that dates quickly, and that invites claims nobody should be making.
Format decides whether it gets used.
Appetite is the constraint. A large powder in a full glass of water is a hard sell to someone who is already struggling to finish a meal, which is why small servings, stick packs, concentrated shots and pleasant flavours matter more here than in almost any other category.
Taste fatigue is real too. This is a product bought for months rather than weeks, so a flavour that is merely acceptable at first will quietly end the subscription. It is worth spending on flavour development that you would skip elsewhere.
Practical formats also travel. Sachets and stick packs go in a bag, and a product that leaves the kitchen is a product that gets taken on the days it is most likely to be skipped.
Where the room still is.
The obvious products are crowded and the specific ones are not. Support around a particular part of the routine, for a particular audience, in a format nobody else is offering, is still open, and it is exactly the kind of brief a custom formula is good at answering.
Positioning matters as much as the formula. This is a category with real regulatory limits on what can be said, and the brands doing well are the ones being precise and useful rather than suggestive.
Our view is that the shelf is still forming. The first wave sold protein. The next one will sell routines, and routines are built out of several products rather than one.
