Wild Nutrition Food-Grown Supplements

Wild Nutrition sits in a rather different category from the skincare and household brands in this directory because here the ingredients aren’t simply going onto our skin or into our environment. We’re swallowing them. That makes formulation, sourcing, dosage and the quality of the raw materials especially crucial.

The company was founded in 2013 by nutritional therapist Henrietta Norton and her husband Charlie Norton. Henrietta had previously worked as a supplement formulator and developed Wild Nutrition around what the company calls Food-Grown® nutrients. Rather than simply putting isolated vitamins and minerals into capsules, the Food-Grown process integrates nutrients into a food matrix containing compounds such as proteins, carbohydrates and lipids. The idea is to deliver nutrients in a form that more closely resembles the complex environment in which we encounter them in food.

That concept is the defining feature of Wild Nutrition. It is also more sophisticated than the name initially suggests. A Food-Grown vitamin isn’t necessarily a vitamin extracted intact from a carrot or an orange. The process begins with vitamin or mineral nutrients that are incorporated into a food matrix. Wild Nutrition is unusually open about this when you dig into its ingredient information. Its Food-Grown magnesium, for example, is described as a glycoprotein matrix containing magnesium compounds, proteins, lipids and amino acids. Its Food-Grown vitamin D3 originates from lanolin from sheep’s wool and is incorporated into a nutrient and yeast matrix. Its vitamin C uses certified-organic citrus pulp.

I appreciate that transparency because “food grown” could very easily be misunderstood to mean that every nutrient has simply been extracted from whole organic food. That’s not what the technology is, and understanding the process makes the products easier to assess on their actual merits.

Although Wild Nutrition now makes supplements for men, children and teenagers as well, women remain at the centre of the company. Its range follows women through menstruation, fertility, pregnancy, motherhood, perimenopause and menopause, alongside more general concerns such as energy, sleep, digestion, immunity, mood, skin and cognitive health.

In 2021, investment firm Piper invested £5 million in Wild Nutrition. Companies House currently records Piper entities as having significant control, including share ownership of more than 25% but no more than 50%. So while Henrietta Norton remains the founder and formulator closely associated with the brand, this is no longer simply a small founder-owned supplement business. I think that’s worth knowing when understanding the company behind the products.

Wild Nutrition has become a substantial supplement company. Its current range runs to dozens of individual formulations rather than a handful of multivitamins.

Women’s nutrition is the largest part of it, with daily multinutrients alongside more targeted products for iron, magnesium, vitamin D, B vitamins, vitamin C, omega-3, gut health, sleep, mood, immunity, skin and hair, fertility, hormonal health, perimenopause and menopause. There are also products containing traditional botanicals and fungi such as ashwagandha and lion’s mane.

The fertility, pregnancy and postnatal collection deserves special attention here. Wild Nutrition makes a Pregnancy + New Mother Multi, Pregnancy + New Mother Omega 3 and other supplements intended for different nutritional needs around conception, pregnancy and after birth. These formulations were developed by Henrietta Norton from her work as a nutritional therapist rather than simply taking an ordinary multivitamin and putting a pregnancy label on it.

There are separate ranges for men and for children and teenagers. Children’s products include a daily multinutrient and omega-3, while teenagers have formulations designed around the nutritional demands of adolescence. The range also includes vegan options, although Wild Nutrition as a whole isn’t vegan.

More recently, Wild Nutrition has expanded into collagen, weight-management formulations, gummies and other specialist products. That expansion makes the brand considerably broader than the Food-Grown vitamin and mineral company it began as, and I find some parts of the range more compelling than others.

I was first attracted to Wild Nutrition because of their attempt to rethink the supplement itself.

Food contains nutrients in extraordinarily complicated biological packages. Magnesium in a pumpkin seed doesn’t exist in the same surroundings as magnesium in an isolated powder. The seed contains proteins, fats, carbohydrates, fibre and countless other compounds alongside it. The same principle applies throughout nature.

Wild Nutrition’s Food-Grown technology is an attempt to bring some of that complexity back into supplementation. I find the underlying philosophy sensible, but more importantly, there is research behind at least some of these nutrient forms. The company publishes studies examining the absorption of nutrients incorporated into whole-food matrices, including research on zinc and selenium. That doesn’t prove that every Food-Grown product is superior to every conventional supplement, but it does mean the technology is more than a marketing phrase with no research behind it.

I also appreciate that Wild Nutrition generally avoids the obsession with enormous doses that has developed in parts of the supplement industry. More isn’t automatically better with micronutrients. Some nutrients accumulate, some compete with each other and some can cause problems at excessive doses. A supplement doesn’t become superior because the number printed beside a vitamin happens to be 1000% of the daily reference value.

The ingredient library is another particularly useful feature. Rather than showing only the attractive front label, Wild Nutrition identifies where many of its ingredients come from and what form they take. Its vitamin C originates from certified-organic citrus pulp in Spain. Its Food-Grown magnesium uses a Lactobacillus bulgaricus-based matrix produced in the United States. Vitamin D3 originates from lanolin. Its omega-3 comes from wild Alaskan pollock from the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska and is MSC certified. Cordyceps mycelium comes from China. That level of detail gives me considerably more confidence than vague descriptions such as “premium natural ingredients”.

I also like that traditional botanicals haven’t been pushed aside as the company has become more science-focused. Ashwagandha, mushrooms and other plant ingredients sit alongside vitamins, minerals and omega oils. Human beings have used plants and fungi as medicine and nourishment for thousands of years. Contemporary research can tell us more about their constituents, mechanisms and appropriate use, but their history didn’t begin when somebody first put them into a laboratory.

The pregnancy and women’s health ranges are another genuine strength. Female nutritional requirements change enormously across a lifetime, and Wild Nutrition has built much of its range around those transitions rather than treating women as smaller versions of men. Fertility, pregnancy, postpartum nutrition, menstrual health, perimenopause and menopause are all represented.

Independent customer experience is also reassuring. At the time I researched Wild Nutrition, its Trustpilot rating was 4.5 out of 5 from more than 2,500 reviews, with 81% awarding five stars. Customers frequently mention product quality, helpful nutritional therapists, delivery and their own positive experiences while using the supplements. Personal reviews can’t prove that a supplement caused a health improvement, but more than 2,500 reviews provide useful information about the company, its service and how people experience its products.

Wild Nutrition isn’t cheap. A month’s supply of a single supplement can cost £20, £30 or £40, and some people will be using several products simultaneously. The Pregnancy + New Mother Multi, for example, is currently priced at around £41 before subscription discounts. Add omega-3 or another targeted nutrient and supplementation can easily become a significant monthly expense.

There is also a practical issue that appears repeatedly in independent discussions: capsule burden. Some formulations require several capsules per day. People specifically discussing the pregnancy products have commented on the size, smell or number of capsules. During pregnancy, when nausea and sensitivity to smells can already be considerable, a theoretically excellent formulation isn’t much use if someone can’t tolerate taking it.

I would also resist turning Food-Grown® into a simple equation of Food-Grown good, synthetic bad. Wild Nutrition’s own marketing sometimes moves too close to that distinction for me. The company contrasts Food-Grown nutrients with isolated synthetic supplements and says the body recognises food rather than isolated nutrients. I understand the philosophy, but human biology is more complicated than what that slogan suggests.

A molecule doesn’t necessarily acquire completely different biological properties merely because one version was manufactured and another came through a plant. Chemical form, accompanying compounds, dosage, absorption, metabolism and the individual nutrient all make a difference. Some conventional nutrient forms have enormous amounts of evidence behind them and are highly effective.

This is particularly important when talking about pregnancy. The purpose of a prenatal supplement isn’t to win a philosophical contest between natural and synthetic nutrition. It is to reliably provide nutrients needed during an unusually demanding biological period. I therefore judge the actual nutrient forms and amounts rather than assuming Food-Grown automatically wins every comparison.

The evidence for Food-Grown technology also needs to be kept in proportion. There are absorption studies on particular nutrients and matrices, including results reported for zinc and selenium. Those findings are interesting. They don’t automatically establish that every nutrient made using the process is better absorbed, produces better long-term health outcomes or is superior to every alternative form on the market. That’s a much bigger claim.

Wild Nutrition’s range has also become increasingly broad. Alongside the core vitamins and minerals there are now products for collagen, beauty, weight management, sleep, mood, brain health and numerous other goals. I inevitably become more selective as supplement companies move into this territory. I don’t want supplementation to turn into a cupboard containing a different expensive bottle for every biological function.

My preference is still food first, supplements second. A capsule can’t replace vegetables, herbs, nuts, seeds, pulses, good-quality proteins, healthy fats, fermented foods and a diverse diet. Nor can it compensate for chronic sleep deprivation, excessive alcohol, smoking, inactivity or relentless stress.

That doesn’t make supplements unnecessary. Modern diets, restricted diets, individual requirements, life stages and documented deficiencies can all create perfectly good reasons to supplement. I simply don’t want the supplement industry to persuade us that optimal health can be assembled from forty capsules while the fundamentals remain neglected.

There are also some customer-service complaints amongst the overwhelmingly positive independent reviews. Recent reviews mention subscription payment problems, delayed deliveries and orders being cancelled. These are a minority within a strong overall 4.5 rating, but subscriptions are a major part of Wild Nutrition’s business model, so reliability matters when customers are depending on a regular supply. I’ve personally experienced the same issues myself. Wild Nutrition falls into the same trap as with most brilliant businesses with great philosophy, ethos, incredible products and formulations, all brought to the front door of the company, only to be destroyed by cheap, badly trained customer support staff. This tends to be the biggest reason I stop buying from companies. Templated, unhelpful answers, not reading the customer’s question properly, condescending replies, all good enough reasons to stop buying from a business. I have a good feeling that Henrietta would never have responded to her customers herself if she was able to screen the queries.

Wild Nutrition is a Certified B Corporation, meaning the wider company’s social and environmental practices have undergone B Corp assessment rather than the certification applying simply to a particular supplement.

Individual ingredients and products carry additional certifications where relevant rather than one certification covering everything Wild Nutrition sells.

The company uses certified-organic ingredients in parts of the range and identifies them individually. Organic certification shouldn’t therefore be interpreted as meaning every Wild Nutrition supplement is entirely certified organic.

Its omega-3 sourcing includes independently certified marine ingredients. The AlaskOmega omega-3 used by Wild Nutrition is sourced from wild Alaskan pollock and carries Marine Stewardship Council certification.

Wild Nutrition also has vegan-certified products, but the entire range isn’t vegan. This is an important distinction because ingredients such as its Food-Grown vitamin D3 can originate from lanolin, while fish-derived omega-3 and collagen products are obviously animal-derived. The company maintains a separate vegan range for people who want to avoid animal ingredients.

All Wild Nutrition products are stated to be gluten-free, dairy-free and egg-free.

Wild Nutrition is an Approved Brand because its philosophy addresses one of the reasons I use supplements in the first place: eating a good diet doesn’t necessarily guarantee that I’m obtaining optimal amounts of every nutrient. Modern agriculture has changed considerably. Intensive cultivation, crop selection, soil management, storage, transportation and food processing can all influence the nutritional composition of the food that eventually reaches our plates. At the same time, individual nutritional requirements vary according to age, life stage, diet and many other factors. For me, supplementation isn’t an admission that real food has failed or a substitute for eating well. The two belong together. I want a diverse, nutrient-rich diet and I also want carefully chosen supplements to help fill the nutritional gaps that can remain.

The supplement industry can be remarkably crude. Isolate a nutrient, manufacture it cheaply, compress an enormous dose into a tablet, add fillers and coatings, put a spectacular percentage of the daily reference intake on the label and imply that more must be better. Wild Nutrition started from a different question: can supplementation be made to behave a little more like nutrition?

Food-Grown® is their answer to that. Wild Nutrition has developed a thoughtful alternative. I can see what forms of nutrients are being used. I can often see where they originated. There is research into the technology. Doses are generally formulated with nutritional context in mind. Traditional botanical ingredients are used alongside vitamins and minerals rather than being dismissed as relics of pre-scientific medicine.

The company’s particular knowledge of women’s nutrition also sets it apart. This isn’t simply a generic multivitamin manufacturer that later created a pink bottle labelled “women”. Henrietta Norton’s nutritional practice and formulation work shaped the company from the beginning, and women’s health remains visible throughout the range, from adolescence and fertility through pregnancy, motherhood, perimenopause and menopause.

I don’t feel equally strongly about every new addition to the catalogue. As Wild Nutrition expands into beauty, collagen, weight management and increasingly targeted formulations, I would assess those products individually rather than transferring my confidence in its core Food-Grown multinutrients automatically across everything carrying the logo.

Price is also impossible to ignore. This is premium supplementation, and using several products continuously can become expensive. I would rather spend money on one or two supplements that serve a genuine purpose than build an elaborate daily ritual simply because a company offers a product for every conceivable health goal.

But the fundamentals are strong: transparent ingredient information, an interesting nutrient-delivery system with published research behind aspects of it, thoughtful formulations, specialist women’s nutrition, independently certified sourcing in relevant parts of the range and a very substantial body of positive customer experience.

Wild Nutrition therefore earns its place here as a carefully considered way of supplementing when supplementation has a purpose.