Gut health brand Supergut, a startup playing in the emerging GLP-1 nutrition category, has secured a “significant growth equity investment” from Full Frame Growth Partners, and brought in former Vital Proteins CEO Tracey Warner Halama as CEO.
Founded by Marc Washington in 2020 as ‘Muniq,’ Supergut makes powders, bars and shakes containing a blend of resistant starches and prebiotic fibers that are fermented in the gut to produce short chain fatty acids. These in turn are claimed to stimulate production of appetite-suppressing gut hormones such as GLP-1 that Ozempic-like drugs are mimicking.
Unusually for a brand of its size, Supergut has a peer-reviewed 12-week human clinical study showing volunteers with type 2 diabetes consuming its products demonstrated improved glycemic control and a small reduction in body weight.
Sales up 172% in 2024
The firm, which rebranded as Supergut in 2022, began as a direct-to-consumer business but has recently picked up a flurry of retail accounts including Erewhon, Target, Sprouts, GNC, and Vitamin Shoppe, with sales up 172% in 2024 driven by its ‘GLP-1 booster’ product.
Halama, who helped take Vital Proteins from a tiny startup to a multimillion-dollar brand that was acquired by Nestlé Health Science in 2021, said the capital injection would help support new product innovation, retail expansion, and new hires.
In his new role as executive chairman, Washington will focus on more strategic work, rather than “the day to day managing the P&L,” Halama told AgFunderNews.
“I oversaw Vital Protein’s strategic exit and acquisition by Nestlé Health Science at the end of 2021 and then continued as CEO for the next 18 months to integrate the company, but I knew that my long term goal was to get back to brand building and more entrepreneurial things.”
“Gut health and GLP-1 nutrition are two consumer megatrends that continue to pick up steam. Supergut is at the forefront of these movements with a leading brand and accessible products powered by prebiotic fiber that can easily fit into one’s daily routine.” Bader Alam, Full Frame Growth Partners
Founder Marc Washington to move to more strategic role
This led to a role at Full Frame Growth Partners giving her the opportunity to meet startups such as Supergut, which was tapping into the GLP-1 trend early, she said.
“I knew that fiber and GLP-1 were beginning to have a moment so I loved the potential and the fact Supergut had a clinical study backing its claims, which is pretty unusual for such a young brand, and I felt could be a business moat for the company.
“I think what Marc saw in me was a counterbalance, someone with knowledge of every inflection point that you need to make over a 10-year timeframe of building a business… when to invest in ERP systems, when you really need to fortify strategic sourcing on your supply chain, when you need to bring in a general counsel, when you start pitching Costco.”
After a while, it became clear that rather than engaging with the company purely as an investor and strategic advisor, she said, “Maybe it made more sense for Marc to focus on the brand and the science and offload the day-to-day P&L management to someone that’s been there and done that.”
Retail expansion, new products
The plan in 2025 is to continue to expand distribution with a particular focus on Amazon, she said.
As for placement in store, it varies by retailer, with some stocking Supergut’s products in the protein and meal replacement section, others in the digestive health set, and others in nascent GLP-1 sets, which encompass both companion products for people taking these medications, and alternatives for people that can’t tolerate or afford them.
There is also a big opportunity for brands such as Supergut to support people experiencing digestive issues while taking GLP-1 drugs, or people trying to wean themselves off the medications and keep cravings, blood sugar and appetite under control, she said.
“We know people are using our products as a way to kind of step down the off ramp from GLP-1 medications.”
GLP-1 and on-pack messaging
But isn’t it a bit risky to use the term ‘GLP-1 booster’ on pack given that the clinical study on Supergut products did not specifically measure GLP-1 levels, although it did show that subjects with type 2 diabetes consuming the products demonstrated improved glycemic control and a small reduction in body weight?
According to Halama, “Brands tend to be a little bit more aggressive with marketing frames as they’re a little bit younger, and it may be that the FDA says to brands you can no longer have GLP-1 on front of pack, right? That could be a real possibility in the future, so the most important thing as a brand that we can do is to be nimble. We have another product name that we used in the past, that we could easily go back to.”
She added: “I think we’re all navigating through this, which is why we have a plan B in place if, in fact, they say it’s time to move on with a different front-of-pack call out. As we have experience doing a clinical study, there’s also reason to believe that we may do a follow up study in the realm of GLP-1.”
‘We want to own gut health’
When it comes to positioning, she said, “We want to own the digestive health category. It’s not to say that we won’t play in protein or nutrition and wellness, but fundamentally, we want to own gut health, because that’s who we are as a brand and where people look to us to really innovate.
“As we build our brand awareness, innovation may happen in ancillary categories, but right now, we’re really going to focus in on digestive health and help bridge the fiber gap as the vast majority of us are not hitting [the recommended] 30 grams of fiber a day.”
Asked about the size of the prize, she said: “I think Supergut has the possibility to be well into the hundreds of millions of dollars [in annual revenue].”
Food is medicine, but it’s not Ozempic…
Speaking to AgFunderNews last year, founder Marc Washington said: “This isn’t Ozempic in terms of the magnitude. No food is going to do that. But this is opening the avenue to have more of a conversation about your body’s natural mechanisms and metabolism. And like so many other things, it’s connected to your gut microbiome.”
There are also other benefits to consuming a mix of prebiotic fibers beyond appetite suppression, from improved gut health to general improvements in metabolic health, he observes, with resistant starch—long the unsung hero of nutrition science—finally getting its moment in the sunshine.
Watch our interview with Washington at Future Food-Tech in 2024:
