With health-and-wellness trends driving product innovation, sports and protein drinks are benefiting from a changing consumer base beyond hard-core athletes to a widening demographic including women and seniors. In 2015, sports drinks experienced volume growth of 5.5 percent to 1.5 billion gallons, with wholesale dollars up 7.8 percent to $6.8 billion, according to an October 2016 report from New York-based Beverage Marketing Corporation (BMC) titled “U.S. Sports Beverages through 2020.”

The report forecasts the market to have a compound annual growth rate of 4.4 percent to reach $8.5 billion by 2020, with volume growth at 3 percent to 1.7 billion gallons, it states.