A customer asked me recently whether personalised supplements were “a new thing or just new packaging”, and I thought it was a fair question — sharp, even. The honest answer is that the idea is old and the delivery is new, and once you can see which parts changed and which parts did not, choosing something for your own cupboard gets a lot easier. So here is the short version of how we got here, told in four stages rather than as a lecture.
Stage one: one product, everybody
For most of the last century the logic of a supplement was simple. Work out what a broad population might be short of, put a sensible amount of it into a tablet, and sell the same tablet to everyone. That approach was never stupid — it is efficient, cheap and, aimed at the middle of the room, roughly right for a lot of people. It is still how most of the shelf works.
The limitation is baked into the design. Aimed at the average, it fits the average. If your week looks nothing like the average week — shift work, heavy training, a diet with whole food groups left out by choice — the tablet does not know and cannot adjust.
Stage two: the cupboard gets crowded
The first attempt at personalisation was not clever at all: buy more tubs. If one product could not fit you, assemble your own fit from single ingredients. I still meet people mid-way through this stage, and I recognise the shelf immediately — six or seven bottles, three of them nearly empty, one bought for a reason nobody now remembers.
It is a real form of personalisation and it deserves credit for that. What it lacks is a method. You are the one deciding what goes in, in what amounts, based on whatever you read last. And the admin quietly grows until the routine collapses under its own weight, which is usually what brings someone to ask me about it in the first place.
Stage three: targeting by goal
The genuinely useful step was organising products by what someone is trying to look after rather than by ingredient. Something for everyday energy. Something for skin, hair and nails. Something that goes around training. You can see this logic across our Targeted Nutrition range, and it is a real improvement: it turns a wall of ingredient names into a set of questions a person can actually answer.
But notice what is still happening underneath. You choose the category, then you get the standard formula for that category. The targeting is at the level of the goal, not the person. Two people with the same goal and very different lives still end up with the same thing.
Stage four: the formula follows your answers
The newest stage — and the one my customer was really asking about — moves the personalising step earlier, before the product exists. Instead of picking from a finished range, you answer questions about yourself first, and the answers decide which formula you receive.
Bioniq GO is the version of this I know best, and it is worth seeing the specifics rather than the concept. The matching runs on a free Wellness Assessment answered online — no blood test, no appointment, no needles — and your answers point towards one of 40 formulas rather than towards one universal product. What arrives is premium Swiss granules instead of a handful of pills, vegan-friendly, up to 23 science-backed nutrients in a single daily dose. The goals it is built around are ordinary ones: normal skin, hair and nails, everyday energy and focus, keeping up with an active life, looking after yourself over the long run.
Two bits of context that help place it. Bioniq was founded in London in 2019, so this is a recent chapter, not a rebrand of an old one. And Bioniq’s core personalised nutrition business is now part of Herbalife, following an acquisition completed in April 2026 — which is why a shop like mine can talk about both in the same breath.
What the history is actually telling you
- Each stage solved the previous one’s bottleneck. One tablet ignored difference. A crowded shelf acknowledged it but handed you the work. Goal-based ranges gave you a sensible starting point. Matching gives you a method.
- No stage cancelled the one before it. A well-made general product is still a well-made general product, and plenty of people are happy there.
- What never changed is the job description. Every stage of this history is about topping up everyday nutrition, not replacing meals. Food supplements are not a substitute for a varied, balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle.
- The thing worth comparing is the method, not the marketing. If a product calls itself personalised, ask what it personalises on — and if the answer is nothing you have told it, the word is doing no work. I have written more on that distinction in what makes a supplement personalised rather than generic.
My practical suggestion, if you are somewhere in stage two with a shelf you would rather simplify: find out what the current stage would say about you before you buy anything. You can take the free Wellness Assessment and read the outcome first, which costs you a few minutes and no money.
If you would like to see where the last hundred years of this have landed, build your personalised formula with Bioniq GO — and if you would rather talk it through against what you already have in the cupboard, message me and we will work out whether it adds anything for you.
