At the recent Regenerate Symposium in Halifax, nutrition experts and industry executives pointed to some familiar barriers: taste, price, convenience, format and accessibility. They also raised a more complicated question around how much consumers really need to understand about ALA, SDA, EPA and DHA to make useful choices.
“Science has to meet real life,” Dr. Wendy Bazilian, doctor of public health and registered dietitian nutritionist, told NutraIngredients.
“Awareness alone doesn’t determine behavior; taste, price, convenience, access, familiarity and routines all matter…we need precision in the science without requiring scientific precision from the consumer.”
Awareness does not equal understanding
Elana Natker, vice president of communications at the Global Organization for EPA and DHA Omega-3s (GOED), presented consumer research showing high recognition of omega-3s but considerably less understanding of the different fatty acids.
GOED’s global research found 96% of consumers surveyed said they were aware of omega-3s, while roughly three-quarters reported consuming some type of omega-3 product, a deliberately broad category that included sources such as seafood, fish oil and flax oil.
Separate research conducted with Nutrition Business Journal in 2024 surveyed 1,000 U.S. supplement users and found roughly half were taking an omega-3 supplement.
“Consumers do understand omega threes as a general concept, but it’s those different types of omega-3s that they’re not really getting or not understanding,” Natker said.
In an exercise asking consumers to identify food sources associated with different omega-3s, no more than 17% answered correctly across the categories presented, according to Natker.
“We got to take a step, a huge step back, and make sure that the fundamentals are covered before we can win consumers on the benefits,” she said.
But adding more detail can create its own problem. During the Q&A, Natker acknowledged that “sometimes with more differentiation can lead to more confusion.”
Dr. Bazilian raised a similar issue. ALA, SDA, EPA and DHA and the questions around their sources, metabolism and conversion matter to scientists, she said, but that complexity does not necessarily need to be passed on to consumers.
“The complexity belongs in the science,” she said during her presentation. “I think it doesn’t have to belong to the person who’s trying to just do a little better in their health.”
The experience problem
Understanding the category is only part of the challenge.
Afif Ghannoum, founder and CEO of CPG Radar, presented consumer data suggesting that among existing omega-3 buyers, the experience of taking a product can matter more than belief in its efficacy.
Ghannoum reported an analysis of 36,287 consumer mentions across omega-3 products, citing that effectiveness drew 86.8% positive sentiment and quality 84.5%, while packaging had a 47.5% negative rate.
“Consumers are really bought into the fact that these products work,” Ghannoum said at the symposium. “It’s really not something they need convincing on. What they’re running into is a real experience issue.”
His analysis identified complaints around packaging, leakage and smell, alongside sensory considerations such as taste, swallowing and aftertaste. Consumers also appeared willing to accept different dosing depending on format, including lower doses in gummies and chewables.
“It’s still the adage of, you know, the best product is the one they keep taking,” Ghannoum said.
Repeat use is also shaping how suppliers think about delivery.
“For us and from our perspective, it’s about availability and form that consumers can repeat because consumers more and more don’t like to do supplementation by traditional means, capsules and tablets,” Denis Neville, founder and CEO of CoreFX Ingredients, told NI.
“The question is, how do we induce repeatability that becomes something that you do for life?” he added.
Neville said broadening formats through enabling technologies could give consumers more ways to incorporate omega-3 oils beyond conventional pills and capsules.
Fitting omega-3s into the diet
For Amy Symington, professor and culinary nutrition specialist, practical nutrition also means moving away from an either-or approach to foods and supplements.
“The dichotomy that stresses plant foods versus supplements, I think, is false,” she said, pointing to a strategy that could include ALA-rich foods such as flaxseeds, chia seeds and walnuts alongside targeted supplementation where appropriate.
“Overall, I would say good nutritional guidance has to be obviously biologically sound, but it also has to be practical enough for people to actually use,” she added.
Dr. Bazilian similarly sees foods and supplements as complementary.
“There is enormous opportunity in starting with how people already eat rather than asking them to organize their lives around a nutrient,” she told NI.
“For some people a supplement is the easiest, most effective format…for others, another capsule is another thing to remember, Dr. Bazilian said.
That leaves room for naturally occurring food sources, supplements, fortified foods and functional foods and beverages, depending on the consumer.
When the message misses
The difficulty of translating recommendations into behavior becomes particularly clear around pregnancy and childhood.
Speaking at the symposium, nutrition expert Lorna Vanderhaeghe, MSc pointed to fish consumption during pregnancy as an example. Warnings around mercury exposure from certain fish are intended to help pregnant women make safer choices, but she argued that the message can become much broader by the time it reaches consumers.
“What the consumer heard is fish is bad and fish has mercury and pregnant women shouldn’t consume fish…and I can tell you this story is prevalent because a lot of pregnant women won’t touch fish,” Vanderhaeghe said.
She also cited a 2019 report in which 0.8% of the U.S. toddlers, children and adolescents studied were taking EPA and DHA supplements, although the finding does not capture omega-3 intake from food.
For children in particular, Vanderhaeghe argued that delivery and taste cannot be separated from the nutrition discussion. Her presentation highlighted different formats and ways of incorporating omega-3s into foods, while acknowledging longstanding concerns about fishy taste and large capsules.
“Omega-3s, you choose the way you want to take them, but you need them and you need more of them,” she said.
Natker also cautioned companies against getting ahead of established evidence when communicating emerging omega-3 research, warning that doing so could undermine credibility.
For Dr. Bazilian, simplifying the message does not mean simplifying the science itself.
“I’d make relevance, why it matters, easier to understand,” she told NI when asked what one change supplement brands could make to improve omega-3 adoption.
“Help people understand what the product offers, who it may be useful for, and how it fits into their lives without requiring them to decode the science themselves,” she added.
Symington brought the issue back to something even more basic.
“If we don’t know how to get it into the mouths of the population or it doesn’t taste good, no one is going to eat it,” she said.