What Expert Formulators Know That Most Consumers Don't: A Drew Peters Interview

Drew Peters formulates for a living. He owns VG Nutraceuticals, serves as Chief Science Officer for Vital Source Nutrition, Beast Bites, and Zenos Health, and consults for brands like Dragon Pharma. If a pre-workout, gummy, or functional food has crossed your radar in the last few years, there's a decent chance his fingerprints are on something like it.

We sat down with him for a wide-ranging conversation, and the parts that stuck with us weren't the flashy ones. They were the small, practical rules he uses to decide what goes into a formula and what gets left out.

The Trend Behind Half This Conversation

A big chunk of the conversation circled back to GLP-1 users without either of us planning it that way. That's not an accident. Companion nutrition built around GLP-1 medications, muscle preservation formulas, protein-forward products, and appetite support is one of the fastest-growing categories in the industry right now, with the market tracking toward tens of billions of dollars over the next decade. Drew's take on it was less about chasing the trend and more about understanding what's actually happening in the body.

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"A lot of times, people aren't making lifestyle modifications," he said about GLP-1 users. "Once you cease, you go back to doing exactly what you're doing, and that turns into the yo-yo effect."

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His bigger concern wasn't the medication itself, it was what happens when people lose weight without protecting muscle. "Muscle is expensive," he explained. "It's burning calories that I'm already not getting. Why am I going to hold on to this?" If a brand wants to build something meaningful for this category, that's the mechanism worth formulating around, not just slapping a GLP-1 label on a protein shake.

Why He'd Rather Leave an Ingredient Out Than Underdose It

Drew doesn't put an ingredient in a formula just because it looks good on a label. If he can't afford to dose it properly, he skips it entirely.

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"I would rather just not put it in altogether versus use an underdosed amount," he said. "That's just label dressing to me."

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This matters more than it sounds. A long ingredient list feels impressive, but a 25-gram scoop with 26 ingredients means almost nothing in it is dosed at a level that actually does anything. Drew has tested products like that himself and described the experience bluntly: bloated, unpleasant, and not worth the shelf space the label takes up.

The Three-Prong Approach to Pumps

Ask Drew what a pre-workout needs, and he won't rattle off a list of trendy ingredients. He'll walk you through pathways.

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"I like to address things in multiple pathways," he said, describing what he calls his three-prong approach to pumps. Instead of stacking three ingredients that all do the same thing through slightly different routes, he builds around three distinct jobs: increase vasodilation, pull water into the muscle cell for fullness, and slow the breakdown of nitric oxide so the effect actually lasts.

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In practice, that looks like citrulline for blood flow, a high-grade glycerol for cell hydration, and something like a natural nitric oxide preservation compound to keep the effect from fading fast. Three different mechanisms working toward the same result, instead of three ingredients fighting for the same job.

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He applies the same logic to absorption. When we asked about getting more out of ingredients with naturally poor bioavailability, like curcumin, his answer was immediate: pair it with AstraGin and black pepper. Without that kind of support, he pointed out, you'd have to eat an unreasonable amount of turmeric just to get a dose that does anything.

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That's the exact thinking behind how NuLiv approaches formulation support too. "Drew's three-prong logic is really just mechanism-first formulation with a catchy name," says Richard, NuLiv Science's primary client lead. "When a brand comes to us with a formula that isn't performing, the fix usually isn't a new active ingredient. It's making sure the ones already in the bottle are actually being absorbed and used."

Why Gummies Are Harder Than They Look

Gummies get treated like an easy upgrade from capsules, but Drew was clear that they come with their own set of constraints. Every gummy has to fit an ingredient into a limited size, survive a cooking process, set within a commercially feasible window, and still taste good enough that someone finishes the bottle.

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Some ingredients simply don't survive that process. Probiotics are a good example. Certain strains can't handle the heat of the slurry stage or exposure to air once the bottle is opened, which is why packaging and manufacturing partner choice matter as much as the ingredient itself.

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His advice for any brand considering gummies: work with a manufacturer that specializes in gummies specifically, not one that makes every format under one roof. "A jack of all trades is a master of none," as he put it, and in his experience, that shows up fastest in gummy quality.

The Real Reason Most Supplement Brands Fail

Toward the start of the conversation, Drew brought up a statistic that's easy to skip past but shouldn't be: 98 to 99% of supplement brand failures within the first 24 months come down to cash flow, not the product itself.

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Brands take on large purchase orders, pay their manufacturer up front, and then wait 60 days or more to get paid by the retailer. If a brand can't cover payroll and packaging during that gap, growth turns into the thing that kills it. That's often where private equity enters the picture, and Drew was direct about the tradeoff that comes with it.

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"They're not the core group of people that built this brand and live and breathe it," he said. "It's purely ROI. They care about being in the black."

What This Means If You're Formulating Right Now

Drew's approach comes down to a few repeatable habits: build around mechanisms, not ingredient lists. Dose things properly or leave them out. Match the delivery format, capsule, powder, or gummy, to what the ingredient can actually survive. And if you're building for the GLP-1 companion category, focus on what protects the customer's muscle and metabolism, not just what fits the trend.

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None of it is complicated. It's just the kind of discipline that's easy to skip when a formula needs to launch fast.

Common Questions About Pre-Workout and Supplement Formulation

What is the three-prong approach to pump ingredients? It's a formulation strategy that targets pump through three separate mechanisms instead of stacking similar ingredients: increasing vasodilation, drawing water into the muscle cell for fullness, and slowing the breakdown of nitric oxide so the effect lasts longer.

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Why do formulators avoid underdosing ingredients? An underdosed ingredient on a label doesn't provide a meaningful effect, even though it satisfies label recognition. Many formulators would rather leave an ingredient out entirely than include it at a dose too low to do anything.

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Why is curcumin usually paired with black pepper or an absorption enhancer? Curcumin has naturally poor bioavailability on its own. Without something like AstraGin or black pepper extract to support absorption, the body uses very little of the dose, regardless of how much is consumed.

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Why do most supplement brands fail? According to industry data referenced in this conversation, the vast majority of supplement brand failures within the first two years come down to cash flow problems, not product quality. Long payment terms from retailers combined with upfront manufacturing costs create a gap many brands can't cover.

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What makes gummies harder to formulate than capsules or powders? Gummies face both a size constraint and a flavor constraint at once. Ingredients have to survive a heated cooking process, set within a commercially feasible timeframe, and still taste good, which rules out many ingredients that work fine in capsule or powder form.

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