Unilever bought Onnit. Nestlé bought The Bountiful Company. Chobani bought Daily Harvest. Private equity firms are circling every supplement brand generating more than $30 million in annual revenue. The wellness brand acquisitions wave of the past five years has fundamentally restructured who owns the products you take every morning, and the price tags are staggering.
This isn’t a trend. It’s a structural shift. The $203 billion global dietary supplement market is growing at nearly 8% annually, and the CPG conglomerates that missed the first wave of direct-to-consumer wellness are buying their way in at premium multiples. Understanding these deals reveals more about wellness industry economics than any revenue report ever could.
The Wellness Brand Acquisitions Landscape
The modern wellness M&A era began in earnest around 2019, when consumer packaged goods giants realized that traditional vitamin brands were losing market share to digitally native, influencer-driven competitors. The old guard (GNC, Nature Made, Centrum) sold products. The new guard (AG1, Onnit, OLLY) sold identities.
Unilever led the acquisition spree with surgical precision. The company acquired OLLY Nutrition in April 2019, SmartyPants Vitamins in November 2020, Liquid I.V. (though technically a hydration brand), and Onnit in April 2021. Each acquisition targeted a different consumer segment while building Unilever’s Health and Wellbeing division into a multi-billion-dollar portfolio.
Nestlé pursued a parallel strategy, acquiring The Bountiful Company’s core brands (Nature’s Bounty, Solgar, and others) for $5.75 billion in 2021. That deal alone represented the largest single transaction in supplement industry history and signaled that the world’s biggest food company viewed supplements as a core growth category.
Why Wellness Brand Acquisitions Command Premium Multiples
Wellness brands consistently trade at higher revenue multiples than traditional CPG brands for three structural reasons.
First, subscription revenue. Brands like AG1 generate the vast majority of their revenue through monthly subscriptions. Recurring revenue is worth more than one-time purchases because it’s predictable, retainable, and grows through word-of-mouth rather than advertising spend.
Second, influencer moats. A brand endorsed by Joe Rogan, Andrew Huberman, or Tim Ferriss has a distribution advantage that can’t be replicated by shelf space alone. The parasocial relationship between creator and audience converts at rates that traditional advertising cannot match. See our deep dive on why every podcast host sells supplements for the full economics.
Third, demographic tailwinds. The supplement consumer is getting younger, wealthier, and more consistent. According to the Council for Responsible Nutrition, 75% of Americans took dietary supplements in 2024, up from 68% in 2014. That’s not a fad. That’s a generational behavior shift.
The Deals That Defined Wellness Brand Acquisitions
Unilever Acquires Onnit (2021)
Terms undisclosed, but industry estimates range from $150 million to $400 million. Onnit’s hero product, Alpha Brain, anchored a nootropics portfolio that complemented Unilever’s existing supplement brands. The deal gave Unilever access to Joe Rogan’s audience and the growing biohacking consumer segment.
Nestlé Acquires The Bountiful Company (2021)
$5.75 billion for Nature’s Bounty, Solgar, and related brands. The largest wellness acquisition in history. Nestlé’s rationale: health science and supplement distribution channels would become as important as food distribution within a decade.
AG1 Raises at $1.2B+ Valuation (2022)
Not technically an acquisition, but the $115 million funding round at a $1.2 billion valuation set the benchmark for what direct-to-consumer supplement brands could command. AG1’s $600 million revenue projection makes an eventual IPO or strategic sale the most watched exit in the industry.
Chobani Acquires Daily Harvest (2025)
The yogurt giant’s move into functional food supplements signaled that the boundary between food and supplements is dissolving. Gwyneth Paltrow, an early investor in Daily Harvest, successfully exited her stake during this transaction.
What Wellness Brand Acquisitions Mean for Founders
For supplement founders considering an exit, the current market offers a paradox. Valuations remain high for brands with strong direct-to-consumer channels, subscription models, and genuine influencer relationships. However, the number of strategic buyers willing to pay peak multiples has shrunk. Unilever restructured its portfolio in 2024 and 2025. Nestlé has digested its Bountiful acquisition. The most aggressive buyers right now are private equity firms, which typically impose operational constraints that founder-led brands find suffocating.
The optimal exit window for most wellness brands was 2020 through 2022. Founders who sold during that period (like Aubrey Marcus) captured peak multiples. Those still holding may face compressed valuations unless they can demonstrate the kind of revenue growth that AG1 has maintained.
The Future of Wellness Brand Acquisitions
Three trends will shape wellness brand acquisitions over the next three to five years. First, the longevity vertical will attract the most aggressive bidding. Brands positioned around aging, cognitive health, and metabolic optimization will command the highest premiums. Second, celebrity-founded brands like Lemme and Goop will face a “founder dependency discount” because acquirers worry that brand equity evaporates when the celebrity moves on. Third, AI-driven personalization will create a new category of acquirable assets, as supplement brands that can demonstrate personalized formulation capabilities will attract technology-sector buyers, not just CPG companies.
The supplement industry is consolidating. The brands that survive independently will be the ones that own their customer relationships, their formulation IP, and their distribution channels. Everyone else becomes an acquisition target. For the full picture of supplement industry economics, see The $190 Billion Supplement Industry.