Take your vitamins

Drug Store News, August 12, 2002

Multivitamins are surely driving incremental growth through retail, as supplier and retailers alike slice the multivitamin category into ever-more-specific segments. And multivitamins should get another look by consumers in the coming months, as the Journal of the American Medical Association last month published an article stressing the importance of supplementing the American diet through multivitamins.

The popularity behind multivitamins sales is not entirely new. Wyeth pointed to burgeoning sales of its Centrum and Centrum Silver multivitamins, which served as a buoy to the company's overall consumer health care business in April. This was despite a lackluster cough-cold season that impacted sales of Wyeth's Dimetapp and Robitussin brands.

Likewise, Bayer's One-A-Day multivitamin brand has been extended to reach middle-aged users with its One-A-Day Active and post-menopausal women through One-A-Day Today. Last month, the company launched its One-A-Day Men's Health Formula.

Wal-Mart added recently a prenatal SKU to its One-Source line of niche multivitamins. The chain also has a unique placement of multivitamins for teens, bridging the gap between the license-laden children's chewables segment and adult multivitamins.