Enjoying omega-3 like never before

For decades, omega-3 has been associated with one dominant format: the softgel. It remains efficient, familiar and commercially relevant—but it is no longer the only way consumers want to experience this important nutrient.

Today, wellness is increasingly built around enjoyment, convenience and everyday routines. Consumers add powders to morning drinks, reach for functional beverages, choose gummies over pills and look for nutrition that feels natural in different moments of the day.

Omega-3 is ready to become part of that evolution.

The opportunity is not simply to deliver the same ingredient in a different package. It is to make omega-3 more enjoyable, more versatile and easier to imagine as part of daily life.

The demand is there and the experience is ready to evolve

Recent research commissioned by Tetra Pak found that one-third of more than 25,000 surveyed consumers actively seek omega-3. The same research highlighted convenience, targeted health benefits and sensory experience as important drivers for functional beverages and ready-to-drink nutrition.

1 in 3 surveyed consumers actively seek omega-3

SPINS data offers another important signal. Protein and performance nutrition now account for 45% of supplement-industry growth, led by categories such as hydration and creatine. Fish oil and essential fatty acids, meanwhile, show relatively limited product innovation—but comparatively strong success rates when genuinely new products enter the market.

This suggests that omega-3 does not necessarily have a demand problem. It may have an enjoyment problem.

Consumers already understand that omega-3 is beneficial. What they have had fewer opportunities to discover is how enjoyable, convenient and flexible it can become when designed for new occasions.

The next chapter of omega-3 will be shaped by formats that invite people to taste it, mix it, carry it and make it part of routines they already enjoy.

The format changes everything

Moving omega-3 beyond softgels is not simply a matter of adding oil to a beverage, gummy or powder. Each format must deliver a positive experience while addressing technical demands involving oxidation, dispersion, stability, dose and sensory performance.

The source still matters. It influences the fatty-acid profile, sustainability considerations and supply chain. But the format determines how consumers encounter omega-3—and whether they will want to enjoy it consistently.

Sparkling beverages

Functional beverages make nutrition feel immediate, refreshing and connected to a specific moment: focus, hydration, recovery or healthy ageing.

For omega-3, however, an aqueous environment introduces significant formulation complexity. The lipid system must remain dispersed while managing exposure to oxygen, light, acidity and flavour interactions.

When these challenges are solved, omega-3 can move into a completely different sensory space: light, refreshing and easy to enjoy. Instead of taking a capsule, consumers can open a can, pour a glass and make omega-3 part of a moment they already look forward to.

Gummies

Gummies can make omega-3 easier and more enjoyable to use, especially for consumers who avoid large capsules. Their texture, flavour and familiar shape can turn supplementation into a small daily pleasure.

The challenge is incorporating a meaningful amount of omega-3 without compromising taste, aroma, texture or shelf-life stability. Oxidation control becomes particularly important because consumers experience the product directly through chewing.

Here, delivery is not simply a technical function. It is the experience itself.

Powders

Powders are increasingly part of established wellness routines that may already include protein, greens, hydration, magnesium or creatine. This gives omega-3 an opportunity to become part of an existing ritual instead of another product consumers must remember separately.

Powdered omega-3 systems must address flow, dispersibility, ingredient compatibility, oxidation and sensory performance. They must also work within real consumer behaviour: mixing quickly, traveling easily and integrating into products people already use.

The result can be a more creative and personalised way to enjoy omega-3—mixed into a shake, blended into a smoothie or added to a favourite beverage.

Purée pouches

Purée and gel formats bring omega-3 closer to food. They can offer easy consumption, portability and portion control across children’s nutrition, active lifestyles and specialised nutritional applications.

These formats introduce their own challenges, including emulsion performance, pH, flavour interaction and shelf-life stability. But they also create an important opportunity: making omega-3 feel less like a supplement and more like something consumers can enjoy anywhere, anytime.

Lipid design helps make new experiences possible

As formats become more creative, the structure of the omega-3 ingredient matters as much as its source or concentration.

Traditional oils were largely designed around encapsulation. Emerging applications require lipid systems capable of working across both oil- and water-based environments while supporting dispersion, sensory quality and biological delivery.

Phospholipids are particularly relevant because of their amphiphilic structure: they contain both water-interacting and fat-interacting regions. This makes them important not only biologically, as components of cell membranes, but also technologically when designing new delivery systems.

For Naturmega, a company focused on advanced lipid science, this category shift has become a central innovation question: how can omega-3 be designed not only for concentration, but also for the application it needs to enter and the biological journey it is intended to support?

Consumers should not have to adapt their lives to omega-3. Our role is to design the lipid system so omega-3 can move into the formats, routines and experiences people already enjoy, without losing sight of stability, sensory quality or biological performance.

Joel Minski, Chief Strategy Officer, Naturmega

One expression of that work is Ruby-O®. Its patented architecture bonds EPA and DHA to phospholipids instead of simply blending the two components. Naturmega describes this structure as bonded phospholipid omega-3 technology.

Clinical research with Ruby-O® has also shown meaningful improvement in the Omega-3 Index using a lower daily EPA+DHA dose than the control oil. While this does not remove the technical requirements of each finished format, it supports a broader industry shift: evaluating omega-3 through source, lipid architecture and delivery, not dose alone.

The question is no longer only where omega-3 comes from. It is also how the ingredient can be transformed into an experience consumers will want to repeat.

The Omega 3 Bar and a new way to experience the category

At SupplySide Global, October 29–30, Naturmega will bring this vision to life through the Omega-3 Bar at booth #6443.

The concept begins with a simple question: what if omega-3 could be enjoyed in ways the category has never offered before?

MindSpark™: a sparkling omega-3 beverage.
BrightBite™: an omega-3 gummy.
Omega-IN™: a powder designed to integrate into existing wellness routines.
OmegaEase™: a convenient purée pouch.

These concepts have moved beyond visualisation into formulated prototypes. Stability work is currently underway, together with internal and external analytical assessment to verify EPA+DHA incorporation within each finished-product matrix. The objective is to understand not only whether omega‑3 can be added to a format, but whether it remains measurable, stable and sensorially acceptable over time.

Together, these concepts invite brands and manufacturers to taste, explore and imagine omega-3 beyond the softgel. Each format offers a different way to experience the same nutrient: refreshing, chewable, mixable or food-like.

The objective is not to suggest that one format will replace the softgel. It is to show how much more enjoyable and versatile omega-3 can become when the format is designed around the consumer.

The softgel will remain an essential part of the category. But the future of omega-3 will be broader and more enjoyable.

It will be found in products designed around different benefits, lifestyles and moments of consumption. And as that happens, the conversation will move from what omega-3 contains to how it can be experienced, shared and enjoyed in everyday life.

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