Market size estimates for any key ingredient tend to be viewed with a fair amount of scepticism. But when it comes to CBD markets, French-based nutrition consultancy Nutrikéo measures out an especially large pinch of salt. “Figures can vary greatly depending on the study,” warns CEO Grégory Dubourg. “But the common factor in all studies is the meteoric growth expected in the years to come.” That is certainly true for figures from Euromonitor International which put the retail value of the global CBD market in 2019 at US$6.3 billion, but which forecast a size of $23.2bn by 2025. Nutrikéo cites Nielsen data which puts the current size of the US market (the world’s largest) at nearly $2bn, and projects a value of close to $7bn by 2025. Prohibition Partners forecasts only very modest growth for the US, rising to $4.18bn by 2026. For Europe, it foresees compound annual growth (CAGR) of 4.3%, taking a projected value of $3.4bn in 2022 to $3.76bn by 2026.
Like many, Nutrikéo assesses the UK to be the largest single CBD market in Europe. But calculating on the basis of all CBD formats, Prohibition Partners estimates that Germany is the largest, followed closely by the UK. It also believes the value of these two markets will actually decline between 2022 and 2026, with growth coming instead from the likes of Spain, Italy and France. For its part, CBD-Intel has the UK growing from an estimated $392m in 2021 to over three times this size by 2026. In the second European tier, it singles out Germany, moving from $125m in 2021 to $398m by 2026, and France growing even more steeply from $106m to $406m, as the most dynamic markets.
Talking nutrition and the endocannabinoid system— Video