The new health imperative
Your customers are already getting the reformulation requests. Brand managers are fielding questions from retailers about sugar content, sodium levels, and ingredient lists. The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement isn’t coming—it’s here. And it’s accelerating demands that will reshape policy, consumer behavior, and the product formulations your customers bring to market.
Keeping pace with MAHA’s presence in both mainstream media and trade press, we’ve watched the conversation evolve from a slogan into a serious strategic driver. We believe its impact could rival the clean label movement in how it influences formulation, consumer expectations, and brand positioning.
For ingredient and flavor suppliers, this is both an opportunity and a challenge: the brands you serve will be under pressure to reformulate, differentiate, and communicate health benefits more clearly than ever.
The suppliers who win in this environment will not just provide ingredients. They’ll provide insight, partnership, and market-savvy storytelling.
What changes can be expected in the food and beverage industry?
While the exact scope of MAHA will evolve, here are the changes we expect to see ripple through the industry:
1. Tighter nutritional standards
Products will face unprecedented scrutiny for sugar, sodium, saturated fat, and ultra-processed content. We’re already seeing major retailers set internal benchmarks: some are requesting 20% sugar reduction targets across snack categories, while others are mandating sodium levels below 200mg per serving for certain product lines. Ingredient suppliers who can help brands meet these lower thresholds without compromising taste will be in high demand.
2. Functional benefit transparency
Health claims will need more scientific support. Functional ingredients—like adaptogens, probiotics, or plant proteins—will need compelling, credible narratives to resonate with both brands and consumers.
3. Demand for better-for-you flavors
Flavor suppliers will be challenged to deliver indulgent sensory experiences with better nutritional profiles. “Permissible indulgence” will evolve into “guilt-free enjoyment” backed by health data.
4. Stronger push for “Healthy at every price point”
Expect retailers and policymakers to push for accessible healthy options, not just premium SKUs. This means ingredient innovation must balance health, taste, and cost.
Why Ingredient and flavor suppliers need to move first
The brands you serve will be looking for partners who already have answers, not just raw materials.
In other words, if you wait for your customers to ask, you’re too late.
We saw this pattern during the clean label movement. Suppliers who waited for explicit requests found themselves competing solely on price, scrambling to reformulate existing ingredients while losing shelf space to competitors. Meanwhile, early movers became strategic partners, co-developing solutions and earning premium positioning. The suppliers who anticipated the shift didn’t just survive the transition. They shaped it.
By aligning your marketing and sales outreach with MAHA’s principles before the mandates and retailer demands hit full force, you position yourself as a forward-thinking, indispensable partner.
Here’s how we recommend doing that.
Six marketing strategies you can implement immediately to position yourself as the go-to partner for health-conscious food and beverage brands
While the exact scope of MAHA will evolve, here are the changes we expect to see ripple through the industry:
1. Lead with health-centric storytelling that puts consumers first
When you’re marketing to brands, remember: their marketing teams are thinking about their consumers, the end consumers. It’s not enough to say your ingredient has “X grams of protein” or “Y% less sodium.” The question on every brand managers mind is, “How will this help me win with my target shopper?”
Instead of making technical specifications the hero of your message, weave them into a benefit-led narrative that taps into consumer motivations:
- “Gives busy parents peace of mind at snack time”
- “Supports gut health without changing the flavor profile”
- “Helps consumers indulge without the guilt”
This shift turns your marketing from a feature list into a brand growth story. If you have clinical data or research, position it as proof behind the promise, not the headline.
Here’s an example in practice:
Let’s say you sell a natural sweetener. You could pitch it as:
“Our sweetener has a glycemic index of 7.”
Or you could say:
“Let’s brands create delicious treats that won’t spike blood sugar—perfect for health-conscious shoppers who still want dessert.”
The second one isn’t just a fact, it’s a selling point your customers can copy-paste into their marketing.
2. Create MAHA-ready resource kits for your sales team that position you as the go-to expert
Brands under MAHA pressure will be looking for suppliers who bring ready-made solutions, not just bulk product lists. Think about how easy it would be for your sales team to wow a prospect if they could send a MAHA-aligned resource within minutes of a conversation. If you can package your expertise into sales tools, guides, and thought leadership, you make it easier for them to see you as a strategic partner.
Think about creating:
- Reformulation playbooks that walk through how to meet lower sodium, sugar, or fat targets without sacrificing flavor
- Trend spotter reports on health-forward flavors (e.g., functional citrus blends, botanical-forward indulgences
- Case studies showing how you’ve already helped brands win with better-for-you products.
By making these assets available as PDFs, one-page infographics, or slide decks, you’ll empower your sales team to respond instantly to brand needs. The faster you can get relevant, MAHA-aligned information into a prospect’s hands, the more credible you become.
Here’s how that might look in practice:
A sales rep meets a snack brand struggling to reduce sodium in their chips without losing flavor. That same day, they send a branded PDF: “5 Ways to Keep Bold Flavor While Cutting Sodium 30%”—complete with your solutions highlighted. That’s not just selling. That’s solving.
- Plant-based brands: Showcase proteins, fibers, and clean flavors that enhance mouthfeel and nutrition without animal-based inputs
- Low/no sugar brands: Highlight natural sweeteners, masking flavors, and indulgent profiles that work with reduced sugar
- Functional wellness brands: Provide compelling science-backed stories for probiotics, adaptogens, or botanicals that resonate wit the wellness consumer
- Allergen-free brands: Focus on ingredients that meet “free from” standards while still delivering on taste and texture
3. Segment your outreach by health trend alignment
Not all health-forward brands care about the same things. A plant-based yogurt startup has different needs than a functional energy drink brand. MAHA will create broad pressure for healthier products, but the way each company responds will vary.
By segmenting your outreach based on health trend alignment, you can speak directly to the opportunities that matter most to each brand:
4. Make partnership your core selling proposition
In a MAHA-driven market, your customer will need to reformulate products under tight timelines, comply with evolving guidelines and still deliver a sensory experience consumers love. That’s not easy—and it’s exactly where you can step in.
Instead of just positioning yourself as a seller of ingredients, brand yourself as a co-creator in the product development process. Show some examples of times you’ve:
- Helped a bakery brand cut sugar by 30% without changing taste
- Guided a beverage company through the shift to natural flavors while keeping costs in line
- Partnered on sensory testing to optimize mouthfeel in a high-protein snack
When you talk about yourself in this way—”We help solve formation puzzles”-you move from being a vendor to being a growth partner. That positioning changes the entire dynamic of your sales conversations.
5. Publicly showcase your health-forward success stories
If you’ve already been working with brands to create healthier products, now is the time to talk about it loudly and often. Share those wins through:
- LinkedIn posts with before-and-after reformulation stories
- Case studies highlighting measurable results
- Press releases announcing innovator collaborations
- Speaker slots at industry events discussing your MAHA-aligned approach
Even anonymized examples can be powerful:
“One national snack brand cut sodium 25% by using our clean-label flavor enhancers—while sales jumped 12% in the first quarter post-launch.”
By making your health-forward work visible, you’ll not only be positioning yourself not just as ready for MAHA, but as a leader already driving it forward. This visibility builds credibility and makes it easier for prospective customers to envision working with you.
- Webinars or virtual lunch-and-learns for brand and R&D and marketing teams on reformulation strategies
- Workshops at trade shows highlighting taste optimization in better-for-you formulations
- Whitepapers and research briefs that interpret regulatory changes and translate them into actionable product development steps
When you’re the one providing clarity in a confusing regulatory and consumer landscape, you become more than a supplier—you become a trusted advisor.
6. Invest in education as a marketing channel
Brands under MAHA will be hungry for practical knowledge: how to reformulate, how to talk about health benefits, how to maintain taste without the “bad stuff.” You can meet that need and position yourself as an authority by becoming an educator in your space.
Consider offering
Opportunities for flavor suppliers
Flavor suppliers have a particularly exciting role to play. MAHA will make indulgent, “full-flavor” moments harder to achieve with traditional ingredient profiles. That’s your opening to:
- Develop health-forward indulgent flavors (think sugar-free strawberry shortcake, low-sodium BBQ)
- Partner with brands to reinvent comfort foods for health-conscious audiences
- Innovate in masking off-notes from functional ingredients so they’re easier to incorporate
The flavor supplier who can make “healthy” taste better than the original will own the conversation.
Opportunities for functional ingredient suppliers
If you supply probiotics, fibers, plant proteins, botanicals, or other functional ingredients, MAHA could be your golden moment—if you can market benefits clearly and credibly.
To achieve this, it’ll be imperative that you:
- Provide easy-to-use content on health benefits for brand partners
- Anticipate regulatory changes in health claims
- Offer formulation support for combining function + indulgence
Want to get ahead? Be the supplier that makes "healthier" easy
MAHA will not just reshape formulations—it’ll reshape supplier relationships. Brands will seek partners who:
- Understand the health policy and consumer demand landscape
- Bring solutions that meet taste, cost and health benchmarks
- Help tell the story in ways that connect with shoppers
At Brandaction, we believe the winners will be those who don’t wait for the market demand to change—they lead the change.
Ready to develop your MAHA strategy? Give us a shout. We’d love to help you translate your health-forward advantages into strategies that build brand and drive demand.
