Did you have “creatine lemon pepper seasoning” on your functional food bingo card for 2026? I most certainly didn’t. 

Thanks to German fast food chain Loco Chicken, I can’t get that combo of words (or ingredients) out of my head. The fried chicken chain introduced this limited edition seasoning recently, with 3g of creatine monohydrate to sprinkle on that crunchy protein goodness for what I can only assume is a complete meal for iron pumpers. Creatine on fried chicken? Nothing says mainstream like fast food adoption!

This offbeat bite ensured that creatine received my moderately undivided attention (I’m very easily distracted). I had relegated creatine to “too niche a compound to make it past the gym rats”. Plus, the research into creatine’s benefits for bodybuilding, energy, and fitness is pretty well documented, like from the 1800s. Even to my cynical, trust-no-brand paranoia, that means something. And it was in pretty boring powder formats. Nothing to write home about.

But in January, there’s been a little bit of a shift in the air. I didn’t just see more creatine products; I saw it in more formats, with a clear push toward portability and convenience. What used to be available as a bulk-buy tub went to the predictable single-serve sachets. The following products are positioned for muscle-building, performance, and strength-supporting – pretty standard fare for portability. 

Stone Mountain Supplements just launched single-serve sticks of 5g of creatine monohydrate in unflavored powder. 

Animal Pak stepped it up a notch with sachets for its Creatine HMB+ in flavors! Each sachet has 5g of creatine monohydrate and 3g of beta-hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate (HMB). 

Then, of course, are the more on-trend candy formats for supplements, still aimed at performance – like Gorilla Mind’s gummies and Mutant Nation’s chewable tablets. The dose for both products is 4 pieces, which deliver 5g of creatine monohydrate. On a separate note: I recently saw the trailer for the latest “28 Years Later” movie and feel extremely jittery about the future. Mutant’s zombie apocalypse packaging is not helping my state of being. 

But it’s also at this point that I’m wondering if this is the beginning of something special.

So, what gives with all these launches? Let’s talk about the growth of creatine in public consciousness. The global market for creatine supplements was worth US$1.1 billion in 2024, according to Grand View Research. It is expected to hit US$4.2 billion by 2030, growing at a rather breathtaking CAGR of 25.2% during this period. 

Search traffic for creatine has also gone up by 40% and there are something like 10 million searches for creatine monthly around the world now. It is one of the most searched supplements, suggesting that increasing awareness is translating into active consideration and purchase intent.

Creatine’s growth is also being shaped by who is buying it. 

Vitamin and supplement seller GNC told Bloomberg that its sales of creatine in the US went up by 75% from 2020, and that 30% of those sales are by women (up from 18% in 2020). The average age of buyers also went up from 30 years to 35 years. These demographic shifts are a fascinating departure from the historically young and male-dominated consumer of yore. 

The products aimed at women promote creatine for performance as well as for other benefits. Gaspari Nutrition’s Proven Creatine for Women also highlights the inclusion of collagen, Vitamin C, and biotin for hair, skin, and nail health.

Lemme’s creatine gummies include something called AstraGin Ginseng Complex, which claims to help nutrient absorption. The gummies also claim cognitive and women’s wellness benefits. I thought it was also quite telling that the product has an “NSF Certified for Sport” claim, a signal that trust and verification will be an important part of the ingredient story.

Through no fault of its own, creatine earned a pretty bad reputation after being linked to several sports scandals involving steroids (and men) in the 1990s. Apparently people thought creatine was a steroid for a long time thanks to this association, even though it is naturally produced by the body. There were also plenty of misconceptions about side effects like kidney damage and hair loss, which are not really true unless you’re shovelling in spoonfuls of the thing.

In fact, more recent studies have shown that creatine may have many more benefits than initially thought. Several point to creatine’s potential in treating depression through various mechanisms. A 2024 study found that it may enhance cognitive performance, and there’s even research looking into creatine’s role in menopause support and longevity. 

Growing awareness of these benefits is expanding the audience from early-adopter fitness consumers to those looking at broader wellness and healthy aging. And when that happens, an ingredient is no longer a category niche and starts becoming a platform for everyday functional food and drink. 

The demand story is only half the explanation. The other half is that creatine is finally becoming easier to formulate beyond the basic powder.

For the longest time, creatine’s biggest barrier (other than the guilty-by-association ’roid rep) wasn’t the lack of consumer interest. It was liquids. The relationship was never stable. Quite literally. 

Beverages are usually the go-to option for newish ingredients because they’re an easy carrier, but creatine is a different beast. The standard creatine monohydrate is not soluble in water and it breaks down to inactive creatinine if suspended in liquid for too long. In acidic environments, it degrades even faster. This is one of the main reasons why the category has thus far been dominated by basic powders. 

What’s changed is that ingredient suppliers are actively addressing these constraints. I saw a few new beverage products call out the use of Glanbia Nutritionals’ CreaBev, a soluble version of creatine monohydrate that also uses microencapsulation to increase the stability of the ingredient. Like Swedish beverage brand Clean Drink’s SAV:D + Creatine, a range that is made with a base of rescued fruit juice, 105mg of caffeine for energy, and 2.5g of CreaBev. 

Just as an aside, Glanbia’s ingredient has been around since 2019, but no one was obsessing over creatine as much, so the need to highlight this just wasn’t there yet.

Clean Mono Creatine Water is another range (by Clean Drinks) of flavored waters with 2.5g of creatine monohydrate and infusion of electrolytes to improve hydration. I couldn’t tell if they used the CreaBev as it’s not explicitly mentioned.

The formulation upgrade also explains why we’re seeing creatine appear in formats that would have been considered impractical even a few years ago, including carbonated beverages. Joyburst, for example, has publicly pointed to solubility and carbonation as the technical hurdles behind “creatine soda” skepticism, an example of how formulation challenges are now becoming part of the innovation narrative, and not a reason to avoid the space. This range is expected to be launched in May 2026.

Even dry snacks are talking about creatine’s instability and solutions to tackle it. American start-up JiMMYBAR! has launched protein bars fortified with 5g of creatine and says it uses a cold-press manufacturing method that avoids the heat and moisture that can degrade creatine. This also makes the bars shelf stable for 12 months. 

Creatine’s expansion into F&B is also being powered by a broader shift in what consumers think it’s for. Muscle strength and performance are still the core use case, but the ingredient is increasingly being framed as relevant to daily energy, brain function, and healthy aging. And these new roles naturally open the door to more everyday formats.

UK start-up Creatime has introduced a range of protein bars with 3g of creatine monohydrate, 15g of protein, 16g of carbs, 3g of fat, and less than 1g of sugar, all coming in at less than 150 calories. The bars even come in some very dessert-y flavors: Triple Choc, Salted Caramel, Cookie Crunch, and Creamy Raspberry. These bars talk about creatine’s benefits for brain performance, reducing bone loss, and improving memory even when sleep-deprived – in addition to strength. 

Innova also flags how creatine is entering adjacent conversations such as lean muscle preservation in the context of GLP-1 use, which further broadens its relevance beyond fitness-first audiences.

This multifunctional positioning is especially important for F&B because it supports new dosing and usage behavior. Rather than a single scoop taken around workouts, brands can justify lower-dose, more frequent intake across the day – through bars, waters, gummies, and functional beverages – making creatine feel more like a daily nutrition habit.

I am kind of excited about creatine’s growth in F&B, but that doesn’t mean it belongs in everything. In fact, pushing it everywhere is the fastest way to make it feel gimmicky. Creatine is still, at its core, a fitness-backed supplement. That’s its advantage. It’s one of the few ingredients with a serious evidence base and moderately decent consumer familiarity. The opportunity for F&B brands is to extend that trust sensibly, without overpromising or forcing it into formats that don’t match how people actually use it.

We’ve seen a lot of functional ingredients go down this “ingredient of the month” route, but the more sensible thing to do for brands is to look at the ingredient as a friction problem to solve. Consumers don’t need 10 creatine moments a day. They need 1 or 2 formats that are easy to repeat and easy to understand, in doses that are worthwhile. 

This is where “fitness+” positioning works best: strength and recovery, with a second benefit that makes sense for everyday life. The smartest white spaces are needs-based, not necessarily time-based. For example, energy when you’re running on low sleep (where the “mental sharpness” angle becomes relevant) or healthy aging (where maintaining strength and function is already a mainstream goal). Both widen the audience without losing credibility.

I’ll admit creatine in seasoning is a fantastic showstopper at this stage of growth. But long-term, that’s not a viable format. Formats need to make sense and fit real habits, not random blanket fortification. I don’t think any ingredient other than protein will get away with that kind of ubiquity.

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