A half-billion-dollar category is selling more units at lower prices. The brands that keep margin will be the ones that can prove what's in the jar.
SPINS’s latest read on functional mushrooms came with a headline: “no longer a niche category.” The numbers back it up. Across natural, conventional multi-outlet and Amazon, mushroom products did $494.7 million in the year to September 6, up 23.2%, with a two-year compound growth rate above 20%. For a brand looking at the category from the outside, the obvious conclusion is that the shelf is crowded and the window has closed.
The more useful read is in the gap between units and dollars. Shoppers are buying a lot more mushroom products. They are paying less for each one. And every time an independent lab checks what is in the jar, it finds gaps between the label and the contents. That is what commoditization looks like — and in a commoditizing category, the way out is proof, not another SKU.
The SPINS figures, published by NutraIngredients on September 28, cover the 52 weeks ending September 6, 2026. Dollar sales grew 23.2%. Unit sales grew 34.8%.
Divide one by the other and the average price paid per unit fell by roughly 9% — our calculation from the SPINS figures. The pattern is sharper in gummies, where units grew 185% against dollars up 127%, implying a price per unit roughly 20% lower than a year ago.
Supplements are the core: the vitamin and supplement department accounts for $339.5 million. Powder is the largest format at $110.8 million. Grocery grew 60%, led by bars; refrigerated grew 16%, led by functional drinks and shots.
Lion’s mane is still the hero ingredient at $224.3 million, up 18.8%. But it grew slower than the category, so its share slipped from roughly 47% to roughly 45% (again our calculation). The incremental dollars are going elsewhere: cordyceps up 39.6%, reishi up 15.9%, sleep-support supplements up 93%, and a broad “general health / superfood” need state up 162%. The cognitive health need state is $153.5 million, up 33.6%.
There is still headroom. In SPINS’s 2025 consumer survey, 16% of supplement users had bought a mushroom product in the past year, while 35% said they were interested. The growth is real. It is just coming from cheaper formats and newer use cases rather than from premium lion’s mane capsules.
One caveat on scale: SPINS does not capture direct-to-consumer sales, and several of the best-known mushroom brands are mushroom coffee brands with large direct businesses. Forbes estimates RYZE alone at more than $300 million in 2025 revenue. Those numbers are not additive with the SPINS total, and should not be compared.
Format migration. Gummies cost less per unit and typically carry less active per serving. When growth comes from those formats, units outrun dollars by design.
Need-state sprawl. Mushrooms started as immune and cognitive ingredients. They are now sold for sleep, mood, energy and “superfood” nutrition, often as multi-mushroom blends of eight or ten species. Products that are hard to compare get compared on price.
Raw-material arbitrage. Mushroom ingredients come from two very different materials: the fruiting body (the mushroom itself) and mycelium, which is often grown on grain. Mycelium-on-grain is cheaper, and the grain adds starch. A crude “polysaccharides” number counts that starch; a beta-glucan assay such as the McCleary/Megazyme method separates it out. A 2025 study from Nammex — a fruiting-body supplier, so not a neutral party — found grain-grown chaga products high in starch and low in beta-glucans. ConsumerLab’s 2022 review could not approve four lion’s mane products because they were labeled as mushroom but made from mycelium. Nammex has petitioned FDA to require labels to disclose the fungal part and any grain; Minnesota’s agriculture department already tells retailers to check that labels list the part used. The defensible line is not “mycelium is fake” — it is that labels should say what the material is, and that the two test very differently.
Label gaps. In July, Vitafoods Insights reported that more than half of 30 lion’s mane supplements sold in the EU and UK failed to meet their own label claims. The testing was commissioned by the founder of a competing mushroom business, which the article discloses — but it fits the pattern.
Thin human evidence. A September preprint review by the managing director of a mushroom-extract supplier argued that many human mushroom studies report a dose but not what the material actually was — species verification, fungal part, substrate, extraction. Its conclusion: “the evidence is often less transferable than the market assumes.” When the evidence does not transfer cleanly to products, brands compete on story and price.
Amazon raised the cost of vagueness. As we covered in May, Amazon now requires third-party cGMP verification for every supplement, and since March 31 has been deactivating listings that don’t match the Supplement Facts panel, as reported by trade press. Compliance vendors put mushroom supplements alongside botanical extracts and proprietary blends in the highest-risk group for mismatches. A ten-mushroom blend with extract ratios and “equivalent” milligram claims is exactly the listing the new rules catch.
They disclose the material. Species with Latin name, fungal part (fruiting body or mycelium), and substrate, on the Supplement Facts panel. That is where both the Nammex petition and state retailer guidance point.
They specify beta-glucan, with the method. A beta-glucan percentage tested by a named assay is a claim a shopper — and a reviewer — can check. “Polysaccharides” is not.
They fund their own testing. The July lion’s mane coverage reported claims — including from the founder who commissioned the testing — of relabeled supplier certificates and “dry labs” that never ran the test. Brands holding price are commissioning independent analysis rather than forwarding the supplier’s COA.
They take retail distribution and trim claims at the same time. RYZE launched in more than 1,900 Target stores in January; Everyday Dose entered more than 1,500 Target stores last year. RYZE also, after an inquiry by BBB National Programs’ National Advertising Division in September 2025, permanently discontinued its energy, focus, digestion, immune and sleep claims. NAD made no finding on the merits. The lesson is that scale did not buy claims latitude.
If you sell mushroom supplements on Amazon, the race to the bottom on price is already running. Whether you are in it depends on whether you can prove what your product is.
Make the label, the listing and the certificate agree. Mushroom name, fungal part, extract ratio and milligrams must match across the detail page, the Supplement Facts panel and your verification documents. Extract-ratio and “equivalent to” language is the most common trap.
Count the actives. In testing firms’ published price lists, costs scale with the number of actives. A blend of ten species may be cheaper to formulate and more expensive to keep compliant than three that are each dosed and tested.
Keep claims to structure and function. No cognitive decline, anxiety, depression or cancer language. Treat “energy, focus, sleep, immune” as claims that need substantiation at your dose. RYZE dropped them rather than defend them.
Stay well away from “magic” adjacency. FDA says Amanita muscaria is not authorized in conventional food and has not finalized its position for supplements. The 2024 Diamond Shruumz outbreak was linked to 113 illnesses. Psychedelic keywords, imagery or blends are not worth the exposure.
Compete on proof. Beta-glucan per serving, part used, third-party test. In a category where the unit price is falling, verified is the only premium left.
If you want to know where your mushroom listings drift from your Supplement Facts panel, Verid8 checks titles, bullets and images against Amazon’s supplement rules — start with a free listing scan. For a full catalog review, order an audit.
Keep reading: Amazon’s supplement rulebook, one month in · Getting a suppressed listing back · Amazon’s TIC verification, explained
Market Analyses are published the first Tuesday of every month. Figures as of October 6, 2026. Sources: SPINS via NutraIngredients, ConsumerLab, Nammex via SupplySide, Vitafoods Insights, Minnesota Department of Agriculture, NAD, FDA, compliance vendors and Forbes estimates; per-unit and share figures are our calculations from SPINS data. This report is market analysis, not legal advice.
Subscribe to get every report in your inbox — published the first Tuesday of every month.