The supplement format comparison guide

The comparison above works through capsules, tablets, powders and liquids — the wider industry's default format set. DAT Supply's own catalogue sits in a different six lanes: gummies, powder sachets, functional jellies, oral strips, liquid drops and pet soft chews. The industry defaults don't map one-to-one onto that set — powder concepts are portioned into the powder-sachet lane rather than sold as bulk tubs, dosed liquids are covered by liquid drops, and capsules and tablets sit outside the sellable set entirely — so a brand owner comparing formats for an actual order should work from these six lanes rather than the four above.

That distinction matters at the brief stage. A brief written around a capsule or tablet format, however well-specified, still needs to be translated into one of the six sellable formats before it can move to sampling — the translation isn't always a like-for-like swap, since dosing mechanics, shelf presentation and manufacturing process all shift with the format.

Within the sellable set, gummies are the largest lane by SKU count and the one most human-supplement categories anchor on. Powder sachets portion a powder or granulate concept into single-serve packs, suited to on-the-go use. Functional jellies read closer to a food format than a supplement dose, useful where a brand wants to soften the 'supplement' framing. Oral strips dissolve without water, fitting occasions where a gummy or jelly can't be used discreetly.

Liquid drops suit actives more commonly delivered in a fat-soluble or dosed-drop form — vitamin D3 and combined D3+K2 SKUs in the catalogue use this lane alongside gummies and functional jellies. Pet soft chews is scoped specifically to the pet-supplements vertical rather than being available across human-supplement categories, so it only enters a comparison when the brief is for a pet product.

Format choice inside the sellable six should start from the consumer occasion the SKU is built for, not from what's most common in the wider category — a category that's traditionally sold in capsules elsewhere doesn't need to stay in that format here, since capsules aren't part of this catalogue regardless. Instead, match the occasion (daily habit, single serving, on-the-go, water-free) to the format best suited to it from the comparison above.

Many ranges end up combining two or more of the six lanes rather than settling on one, since a single range often needs to serve more than one occasion. Reviewing the format hubs for the specific formats under consideration, alongside the multi-format range guidance linked below, is a faster way to confirm feasibility than starting the comparison from scratch for each new SKU.

Not every sellable format is manufactured across every category in the catalogue. Pet soft chews, for instance, only applies within the pet-supplements vertical, and other formats concentrate more heavily in some categories than others depending on what's already in production there. Before settling on a format in a comparison, it's worth checking the category hub for the product line in question to confirm that format is actually in production for that category, rather than assuming every format-category combination is available by default.

This cross-check takes a few minutes against the category and format hubs linked below, and it catches mismatches — a format that reads as a good fit on paper but isn't yet built for the target category — before they surface later as a delay at the brief stage.