I recently spoke with some early-stage founders planning to launch a creatine product into mainstream grocery. My gut reaction was simple: outside tubs in pharmacies, the market didn’t feel ready.

Creatine only works if you dose it properly - an initial loading period, then daily use, compounding over 6–8 weeks before any results show up.

So my rational brain says a creatine soda or donut is pointless.

But there’s my mistake: humans aren’t rational.

Today’s story is a deep dive into creatine and where I think it’s actually heading.

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Only 3% of people are taking creatine

That spikes with gym-audiences, but it’s hardly mainstream.

Estimates of awareness sit maybe somewhere around 20-40% of adults know what it is and could explain it to someone else.

For the last 25 years, creatine has been confined to gym bros and tub formats for those bulking up in rugby league preseason.

But we’d be terrible marketers if we only looked at historical consumption trends and projected it forward.

Our job is to connect the dots.

Understand the data, then look for signals that hint at where behaviour might actually go next.

The performance supplement to general wellness arc

If you step back, you’ll realise this is a familiar story.

Supplements follow a pattern.

Protein moved beyond bodybuilding once it became associated with everyday nutrition. Collagen spread once it was framed around skin and ageing rather than niche beauty routines. Electrolytes transcended sport when people started linking them to feeling better on a normal day.

Mainstream adoption happens when an ingredient stops signalling a specific benefit to a specific type of person.

Creatine now seems to be entering that shift - from a gym behaviour to something broader. The molecule hasn’t changed, only what taking it says about you.

The adoption drivers

It’s not science or new evidence that’s going to push people into suddenly taking creatine on a daily basis.

It’s a mix of culture and communication.

1. The influencer reframe

The biggest shift driving broader awareness of creatine is social media content.

Andrew Huberman has 7 million YouTube subscribers and says creatine can help improve mood regulation and improve brain function.

Bryan Johnson has 2.3 million Instagram followers and has launched his own line of creatine under his longevity brand, Blueprint. They promise cognitive health* and peak performance* from clinically-backed ingredients. Not sure where those asterisks go but the promise is clear.

Massy Arias has 3.1 million Instagram followers and openly advocates creatine in her routine and content. She’s known for helping close the gender gap in creatine use and regularly encourages women to consider it as part of normal training and health routines. Coincidentally, she also owns her own creatine brand.

And these are simply a handful of people with real pull, but it trickles down through feeds right until Moms in Middle America stop into Target to top up on their creatine supply.

And it’s exactly this noise around the ingredient that’s pushing brands to innovation.

2. The format revolution

Friction limits mass-market adoption.

Mixing powder from a tub into water is how most people who use creatine consistently take it. But that process relies on adopting a new habit in your day - an annoying measuring scoop and mixing process that results in a gritty texture you slam down just to get it in.

So it’s understandable that when creatine gummies launched, they took off immediately.

A format that immediately solves the friction problem. Let’s skip over the fact that creatine has stability issues and there’s a load of controversy over whether these actually contain their stated active doses, but take their success in sales as a signal: people want a solution to this problem.

Viral brand launches help push this notion even further.

Man Cereal launched with their outrageously simple packaging design and slightly sexist brand name. Joyburst has reported supply constraints due to sellouts. These brands are going after broader audiences by solving the friction - offering a format solution that allows people to integrate their dosage into the day in a natural way.

3. The baseline optimisation trend

We’re past the era of “supplements to improve” and we’re now in the era of “supplements to not feel worse”.

People now build daily stacks:
magnesium
electrolytes
omega-3

None promise transformation. They promise stability.

Creatine fits neatly into that belief system - cellular energy, recovery, resilience - whether people fully understand it or not.

And once an ingredient sits inside maintenance instead of performance, adoption expands dramatically.

So where does creatine land?

My rational brain still struggles with it.

Creatine only works if you take it consistently. Most consumers won’t.
Many of these formats will be underdosed, inconsistently used, or abandoned after a few weeks.

From a purely biological perspective, a lot of the usage will be inefficient.

But categories don’t grow because consumers behave optimally.
They grow because consumers feel comfortable participating.

RTDs, gummies and cereals don’t need to replace tubs to succeed.
They just need to remove the intimidation.

Once creatine stops signalling “gym person”, more people try it.

The same person who drinks electrolytes when they haven’t had an intense workout, grabs a green smoothie RTD inconsistently and occasionally has a collagen snack will throw creatine into the mix “because it’s good for them”.

So yes - creatine is probably overhyped right now.

But that doesn’t mean the products won’t blow up.

Because the real shift isn’t scientific.
It’s social.

Creatine isn’t becoming popular because everyone suddenly understands it.

It’s becoming popular because nobody feels weird taking it anymore.