Vesper has become the first to include European creatine prices in the Vesper Price Index (VPI), an independent pricing benchmark designed for buyers, sellers, and traders to establish fair market prices and simplify negotiations for niche agricultural products. These creatine prices are updated weekly, ensuring users always have access to the most current market data.

By adding creatine pricing for the European market, Vesper offers accurate, comprehensive data for a product that has traditionally lacked clear pricing information, setting a new standard for transparency in the sports nutrition industry.


The Importance of Creatine

Creatine is a compound stored in muscles that helps regenerate ATP, the main energy carrier in cells, during high-intensity exercise. While most creatine is found in muscles, smaller amounts exist in the brain and other tissues.

Creatine is primarily produced synthetically through chemical processes that combine sarcosine, a sodium salt, and cyanamide. These substances are reacted under controlled conditions, resulting in creatine monohydrate, the most commonly used form in supplements. The final product is filtered, purified, and dried into powder form.

Athletes commonly use creatine to boost strength, muscle mass, and performance. When used alongside protein ingredients such as whey or caseinates, creatine enhances muscle recovery and growth by providing quick bursts of energy while the proteins supply the necessary amino acids for muscle repair. This combination is particularly effective in sports nutrition, as the proteins build muscle mass, and creatine enhances energy production and performance during high-intensity workouts. Together, they offer complementary benefits, improving both strength and recovery. Additionally, creatine offers potential brain function benefits, further increasing its value in comprehensive fitness supplementation.


The Challenges of the Creatine Market

The creatine market is known for its lack of transparency. This is mainly because creatine is a low-volume product that is typically sold directly from manufacturers or traders to industrial or wholesale buyers, limiting public access to pricing information and reducing market visibility.

This lack of visibility has made it difficult for buyers and sellers to make informed decisions, leading to inefficiencies in pricing and negotiations. Buyers struggle to benchmark fair market prices, while sellers face challenges justifying their pricing amidst fluctuating demand.

In recent years, the demand for creatine has surged, driven by its increasing popularity among athletes, fitness enthusiasts, and even older adults seeking its muscle-enhancing and cognitive benefits​. This rise in demand has put additional pressure on the market, intensifying price fluctuations and competition. 

With Vesper’s introduction of creatine prices in the VPI, these inefficiencies can be addressed. By offering transparent and reliable data, Vesper sets a new standard for creatine pricing, benefiting all stakeholders involved. This helps streamline negotiations and ensures fair pricing in an otherwise opaque market​. 


Why the VPI is Invaluable to Market Participants

The VPI aggregates price inputs from a wide network of buyers, sellers, and traders, ensuring a comprehensive and balanced view of the market. Unlike other benchmarks that may favor one side, the VPI offers an unbiased perspective. Vesper’s extensive community, with a shared goal of enhancing market transparency, contributes to its success in creating the first-ever benchmark for creatine prices.

Vesper’s ability to establish this benchmark stems from the trust and cooperation of this network, which ensures that price inputs are representative of the true market. To maintain reliability, all new data undergoes a rigorous four-step validation process, ensuring accuracy and consistency before being incorporated into the index. This ensures that market participants can trust the VPI to provide reliable, up-to-date information for their decision-making.

The VPI goes beyond simply offering another pricing reference. It uncovers previously hidden market data, offering independent insights that reshape how businesses operate in niche markets like creatine. By providing transparency, accuracy, and actionable insights, the VPI strengthens negotiation power, enabling buyers, sellers, and traders to transact confidently at fair prices​.


The Scope of the VPI in the Sports Nutrition Market

Alongside Creatine, The VPI provides weekly market prices for key sports nutrition ingredients, such as Whey Protein Concentrates (WPC), Caseinates, and Milk Protein Concentrates (MPC). These markets often lack transparency because they are considered niche in the food and sports nutrition industries, with few producers and limited production volumes, unlike more mainstream proteins such as standard whey or soy protein. The limited number of suppliers and regional production variations have contributed to the absence of a standardized pricing benchmark.

The VPI addresses this gap by offering accurate and up-to-date pricing across regions like the European Union, the United States, Latin America, and Oceania. Frequent updates allow businesses to monitor regional price movements for essential ingredients, helping optimize supply chains and stay competitive.

In addition to cross-country price comparisons, Vesper’s platform also enables cross-commodity price comparisons within the sports nutrition market. This is especially valuable for producers facing the challenge of improving margins on high-protein ingredients while balancing quality and profitability. For example, in the chart below, you can track the latest price trends for key ingredients like WPI, WPC 80, and MPC85.

Figure 1: price comparison for EU proteins in EUR/mt.

Additional Sports Ingredient Pricing from Industry Partners

In addition to the ingredients covered by the VPI, Vesper also offers pricing sourced from trusted industry partners for a wide array of sports nutrition ingredients. These Partner Prices provide a representative snapshot of market trends, leveraging the expertise of established industry players.

Although Partner Prices follow a similar methodology to the VPI, they are uniquely curated by each partner, offering a distinct perspective on the market. This expansion aims to give users a more comprehensive view across various commodity categories by tapping into the insights of our partner network.

By integrating these partner-sourced prices into the Vesper platform, procurement managers can gain a complete understanding of the market for key ingredients in sports nutrition. This includes products like pea protein isolate 80%, lecithin, oats, packaging materials (such as LDPE, Film, Polypropylene), vitamins, and flavorings like cocoa and vanilla.

Explore the newly added creatine prices on the VPI today and experience how transparent, reliable data can transform your decision-making.

Full list of Sports Nutrition Products published in the Vesper Price Index:


Dairy Proteins

  • Whey Protein Concentrates (WPC 35 & WPC 80)
  • Whey Protein Isolate (WPI)
  • Sweet Whey Powder (SWP Food & SWP Feed)
  • Milk Protein Concentrates (MPC80 & MPC75)
  • Lactose

Dairy Liquids & Concentrates

  • Raw Milk

Milk Powders

  • Skimmed Milk Powder (SMP, Food)
  • Whole Milk Powder (WMP)

Sugars

  • White Sugar