Stick Packs Keep Taking Share From Capsules

Stick packs have moved from a convenience option to a primary format choice for a growing share of new product launches, especially in categories like hydration, greens blends, collagen, and pre-workout. The appeal for brand owners is straightforward: lower barrier to trial, easier travel and gifting positioning, and packaging that reads as modern next to a bottle of capsules. For contract manufacturers, stick packs also mean different equipment and stability considerations than tablets or capsules, particularly around moisture-sensitive actives and flavor masking. Brands considering a stick pack SKU should budget more time for taste and texture iteration than they would for a capsule reformulation, since powder mouthfeel is much less forgiving. It's also worth checking whether your ingredient list behaves well in single-dose powder form before committing to the format, since some actives clump or degrade faster outside a capsule shell. This is a format decision worth making early, since it affects both cost and formulation choices downstream.