Growing into new territories: what wellness and supplement brands need to think about before they scale across borders

For a brand that's successful on home turf, a new market looks like the obvious next step, a growth curve built on a tried and tested product. But launching into a new market is rarely a copy-and-paste exercise. Different regulatory systems, retail landscapes and consumer expectations all impact how a product lands, and getting that wrong can be expensive to fix.

When the brands we work with start thinking about new markets, there are five questions we always ask:

1. Is the formulation appealing, functional and commercially sound for that market's palate and supply chain?

2. Does the ingredient list meet the specific regulations for each country? Permitted ingredients and doses vary from market to market.

3. Is the packaging fully compliant? Panels, claims and design all carry different rules depending on which country you’re selling in.

4. Have the benefits of manufacturing and sourcing locally been explored, rather than shipping a finished product across a border?

5. Has the project considered each of the above points before the launch date is fixed?

   
   

Here's why each one matters:

1. Why formulations don't travel as well as supplement brands expect

It's well known that Hershey's and Cadbury's use different processes and fat sources in their milk chocolate, making them taste noticeably different to each other. Each is the leading brand in its own country, but ask any native consumer and the other's chocolate will be deemed worse.

The same is true of wellness products. Sweetness thresholds, acidity, carbonation and flavour perception all vary by market, often more than brands expect. What’s trending or reads as bold or indulgent in one country can read as sickly or artificial in another.

Flavour masking and sweetness thresholds by market

For supplement and functional food brands specifically, this is worth taking seriously because many functional actives are unpleasant on their own, and products rely on flavour and sweetener systems to mask that. But that system isn't universal, and the taste of the actives means localising it isn't as simple as dialling sweetness up or down.

Swap in a new flavour without redoing the underlying sweetener and masking ratios to meet a country’s taste preferences and it can quickly result in a product that doesn't taste good for any market.

Climate, ingredient stability and formulation choices

Climate adds a layer that has nothing to do with taste at all. Traditional probiotic strains like Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium bifidum start losing potency in warmer temperatures, meaning they need a genuine, unbroken cold chain from manufacturer to shelf.

Spore-forming Bacillus strains solve this by surviving heat well beyond boiling point without refrigeration at any stage, but it's a different set of strains with a different evidence base, not a straight swap for whatever the domestic formulation already uses. Those differences need to be worked through in the formulation, the claims, and the clinical evidence behind them before a product is launch-ready.

Formulation is rarely something that works regardless of where it's sold, it's a set of choices that need revisiting for every new market.

That's exactly why organoleptic testing – the sensory evaluation of taste, smell, appearance and texture – needs re-running, not repeating, for each one. Not only does the target profile need recalibrating for each market's palate, but storage conditions, transit times and climate across a new distribution network can affect texture and stability too, meaning post-production testing needs to reflect a market's supply chain, not just repeat the checks that worked at home.

2. How ingredient regulation differs from market to market

The sleep category gives us a clear example of how quickly a formulation can become redundant depending on the market.

Take melatonin. In the US, it's an over-the-counter dietary supplement, sold freely and often at doses that would be unavailable elsewhere. In the UK, it's the opposite: a prescription-only medicine, unavailable as a supplement at all. Move into the EU and the picture fragments further still. France permits melatonin in food supplements up to 2mg, Germany's threshold sits at around 0.2mg with anything above that requiring a prescription, Italy allows up to 1mg, and Sweden treats it as prescription-only.

Ashwagandha tells a similar story. It's permitted and widely used in the US, and is currently allowed in the UK, though is under active regulatory review. But it's banned in food supplements in Denmark and restricted to pharmacy-only in France. For now at least, a brand built around it can move freely between the UK and US then hit a wall the moment it tries to enter certain EU markets.

The first step to take when helping brands move into new markets is to check that the formulation is legally allowed and makes commercial sense, market by market, before a launch date is set. 

3. Getting pack design and label compliance right for each market

Once formulation is finalised, the pack itself usually needs more work than brands expect.

How on-pack health claims differ between the US, UK and EU

In the US, chicory inulin is officially recognised as a dietary fibre, so brands can use flexible marketing language like "supports a healthy digestive system" or "promotes good gut health," and "prebiotic" is a permitted descriptor. In the EU, only products offering a daily chicory inulin intake of 12g or more can use the authorised wording "chicory inulin contributes to normal bowel function by increasing stool frequency". “Prebiotic" isn't allowed as a claim at all.

That gap shows exactly why claims wording needs checking market by market, even when the underlying science is identical. The US allows relatively broad structure/function claims, whereas the UK and EU only permit specific, pre-approved wording from an authorised claims register. A claim that's standard marketing language in one market might simply not exist as approved wording in another.

Nutrition panel and allergen labelling differences by country

Nutrition and supplement information panels follow different legal formats too. UK and EU labelling both use Nutrient Reference Values (NRV) while the US and Canada use percentage Daily Values (%DV). The UK and EU also have more prescriptive allergen labelling requirements around 14 recognised allergens, while the US recognises nine.

Pack design, naming and visual cues across markets

There's a visual layer as well. Colour, typography and pack format all carry different cues in different retail environments, and a look that feels considered in one market can read as under-designed, or over-designed, in another. Brand names and straplines need the same check: how they translate, what they mean locally, and what that might imply that wasn't intended at home. Units, serving sizes and permitted claims all need verifying against local rules before a single can or pouch goes to print.

None of this means diluting a brand's identity, but it does mean being honest about which parts of an identity are genuinely universal, and which were shaped by the shelf and shoppers it was originally built for. Considering this from the outset saves a lot of time and money further down the line.

4. Why manufacturing and procurement need a local footprint

A lot of cross-border friction has nothing to do with the product itself, it comes from the supply chain sitting behind it. Shipping a finished product across a border adds customs complexity, lead time and cost that can impact a brand.

Procurement matters just as much: sourcing ingredients directly, in-country, rather than shipping them across a border as part of a finished formulation, can avoid much of the delay and cost that catches brands out when a new market is treated as an extension of the existing supply chain, rather than a supply chain of its own.

It's why at BLC we don't just support brands with working out how to enter a new market, we help them manufacture and source directly within it. Our integrated manufacturing model gives brands access to a highly versatile, flexible and scalable supply chain that brings together domestic ingredient and packaging supply networks and audited manufacturing partners across the UK, USA and EU. The result is an ability to help brands scale confidently into multiple markets without the hold-ups that come with routing everything through a single site and a customs form.

5. Where to start when planning a new market launch

Whichever direction the growth is heading, the founders who move fastest are the ones asking the right questions before a launch date is set. Which ingredients travel unchanged, which need reformulating, and which are off the table entirely? What does the pack legally need to say, and what does it need to look like to land well on that market's shelf? And who, locally, can actually manufacture and supply it, rather than just receive a container of it?

Get that sequence right, and a new territory can become a genuine new growth curve. 

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