Colostrum supplements are booming, with U.S. consumers spending more than $19 million last year. But does powdered cow colostrum actually deliver health and beauty benefits? And can sourcing this newborn food keep the pace?
If your morning wellness routine suddenly includes a scoop of powdered cow colostrum stirred into lemon water, you are not alone. A once-obscure dairy byproduct has become the latest beauty-and-gut-health fixation, boosted by celebrity testimonials and stocked at mainstream retailers. But as sales surge, so do the questions: Is colostrum actually a health food? And perhaps more pointedly, where is all of this colostrum coming from?
According to NielsenIQ data, U.S. consumers spent more than $19 million on colostrum supplements over the last year — that’s more than a 3,000 percent increase over $612,000 in sales just two years prior. An additional $3 million was spent on supplements that merely include colostrum as one ingredient. Colostrum’s moment has clearly arrived.
Like the collagen craze, brands including Armra, Cowboy Colostrum, and Bloom Nutrition have positioned bovine colostrum as a daily ritual promising better skin, stronger immunity, and improved gut health. The appeal is understandable. But unlike collagen, which is a co-product of the meat industry, colostrum is a much more limited resource. Newborn mammals consumer colostrum as the first milk produced after birth. It is dense with antibodies, growth factors, and immune-supporting compounds. Pediatric research has long confirmed its importance for infants. The question is whether those benefits translate to healthy adults consuming it in powdered form.
What the science actually says
Armra founder Sarah Rahal, a double board-certified pediatric neurologist (whose American Board of Medical Specialties certification lapsed in 2024), told Bloomberg she spent years studying the ingredient. “We pioneered the category,” she says. Rahal added that she uncovered thousands of research papers supporting colostrum’s potential. “And it turns out that it confers those same benefits to restore the body back to that original intelligence no matter what age you take it.” Consumers, including celebrities like Jennifer Aniston and Dua Lipa, are buying in.
Yet independent experts remain cautious. Timothy Caulfield, a professor at the University of Alberta’s School of Public Health and author of The Cure for Everything, has studied supplement hype cycles for decades. “There’s immediate interest, a huge amount of hype,” Caulfield told Bloomberg. “The supplement is portrayed as having benefits for a whole host of ailments and health-optimization strategies.” But once rigorous research accumulates, he adds, claims often diminish. Upon closer examination, positive effects frequently “become small or nonexistent.”
Peer-reviewed research on bovine colostrum does show potential benefits in specific contexts — particularly for athletes experiencing gastrointestinal stress or individuals with certain gut disorders. A 2017 review published in the journal Nutrients found some evidence that bovine colostrum may support gut barrier function and immune response in athletes under heavy training loads. However, most studies are small, short-term, or conducted in highly specific populations.
Jeffrey Bland, co-founder of the Institute for Functional Medicine, told Bloomberg that his take on the clinical proof is that it is very limited to build a “legitimate mass-market product.” He notes that for general gut health, more affordable interventions, such as dietary fiber, have stronger evidence.
The regulatory landscape adds another layer. Supplements in the U.S. are governed under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, meaning manufacturers do not need to prove efficacy before selling products. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration steps in only after safety concerns arise. As Caulfield noted, supplements can feed into the belief that “if a little bit of a substance is good, a lot of it is better.”
“We’re still at the early stages of any evidence to support supplementing with bovine colostrum. We’re learning,” Cedars-Sinai sports medicine physician Tracy Zaslow, MD, cautioned in a Cedars-Sinai post. “The jury is very much still out on the impacts of colostrum supplements on body composition and strength,” she added.
Because colostrum is dairy-derived, it can also pose problems for people with milk allergies or lactose intolerance. Cow’s milk protein allergy affects approximately 2 to 3 percent of young children and can persist into adulthood. Roughly 65 percent of the population is lactose intolerant — a number that can be even higher among Asian and Black populations. Broader supplement safety also remains a concern as well, with a 2018 study finding that many dietary supplements contained unapproved pharmaceutical ingredients, highlighting ongoing quality-control issues in the category.
So where is all this colostrum coming from?
Colostrum supplements are typically derived from dairy cows within the first 24 to 48 hours after calving. Dairy industry guidelines prioritize feeding newborn calves colostrum immediately because it provides essential immunoglobulins that calves cannot produce on their own at birth. According to the USDA, adequate colostrum intake is critical for calf survival and disease resistance.
Commercial colostrum collection generally occurs only after calves have been fed their required portion. The Colostrum Counsel, an industry group spanning Canada, the U.S., Europe, Asia, and New Zealand, states that ethical collection involves ensuring calves receive sufficient colostrum before surplus is harvested. The U.S. dairy industry produces roughly 9.4 million dairy cows annually, according to USDA data, meaning calving — and therefore colostrum production — is continuous throughout the year.
Still, exact figures on how much colostrum enters the supplement market are difficult to pin down. There is no centralized federal tracking specific to colostrum extraction volumes. Most supplement brands source from large dairy operations. Armra says it uses colostrum from “U.S. grass-fed cows” and employs a proprietary pasteurization process designed to preserve nutrients. The Cowboy Colostrum website is equally vague. “We collect exclusively first-day milking colostrum,” it reads.
“Brands like Armra and Re-Borne claim that colostrum is widely considered a “waste product” in the dairy industry,” notes Sentient Media. “While it is true that some mother cows do produce more colostrum than the calves technically need, colostrum is likely deemed a ‘waste product’ because it cannot be sold as part of regular dairy milk, and because calves are often separated from their mothers before they can directly consume colostrum in the days after birth.”
Animal welfare advocates have long scrutinized early milk diversion in the dairy sector. Humane World for Animals (formerly The Humane Society of the United States) notes that separating calves from mothers shortly after birth is standard practice in industrial dairies. While colostrum supplements are marketed as a wellness add-on, the underlying supply chain depends on conventional dairy production systems. That reality raises ethical questions for consumers who might not otherwise purchase dairy products.
Dairy-free colostrum?
As scrutiny around bovine sourcing grows, a new flank of the colostrum market is attempting to rewrite the category altogether. Lisa Odenweller, founder and chief executive of Kroma Wellness, is among those stepping into that space. With the launch of Super Core, it is introducing what it calls the first dairy-free, human-optimized colostrum supplement. “The idea stemmed from a deep belief that we could do better — both for the body and for the planet,” Odenweller told Forbes. “We saw a clear opportunity to innovate, creating a formula that offers the powerful benefits of colostrum, but designed for humans, free of dairy, and aligned with modern values.”
Rather than using bovine colostrum, Super Core is powered by Effera, a proprietary, human-identical form of lactoferrin created through precision fermentation. “Effera mirrors the colostrum that’s naturally found in human breast milk,” Odenweller explains. “It’s non-allergenic, non-immunogenic, and designed to work seamlessly with human biology. We can only absorb up to 70 percent of bovine lactoferrin; whereas we can absorb 100 percent of Effera.”
The brand claims its formula is 15 times more potent than traditional cow colostrum products and requires only one scoop per serving, a positioning that helps justify its $120 price point in a category often dominated by jars priced closer to $40. “Transparency and education are key,” Odenweller says. “Effera is not a commodity ingredient — it’s the result of cutting-edge biotechnology and years of R&D. When you combine scientific rigor, ethical formulation, and superior efficacy, the price reflects that investment.”
Beauty claims and the glow factor
Much of colostrum’s recent buzz centers on aesthetic benefits. Influencers credit it with clearer skin and shinier hair. The theoretical mechanism often cited involves immunoglobulins and growth factors supporting gut integrity, which in turn may reduce systemic inflammation — a concept known as the gut-skin axis.
Dermatologists acknowledge that gut health can influence inflammatory skin conditions such as acne or eczema. However, there is limited clinical evidence that oral bovine colostrum improves skin appearance in otherwise healthy adults. The American Academy of Dermatology emphasizes that established interventions — sun protection, retinoids, and proven topical treatments — remain first-line options for skin health.
When asked about limited evidence, Rahal responded: “Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack.” It is a line that resonates in wellness culture, where personal testimonials often carry more weight than double-blind trials.
Still, skepticism persists. As Caulfield warns, supplement enthusiasm often outpaces scientific validation. The surge in spending may reflect aspiration more than data.
For wellness-focused consumers, colostrum is another trend at the intersection of ancient biology and modern branding. It is nutrient-dense milk designed for newborn calves, now repackaged as a longevity elixir for adults. But if traditional colostrum supplements hinge on dairy’s reproductive cycle, the next wave may hinge on biotechnology.
“In an industry full of noise, real disruption is about quiet, confident innovation that actually works and changes people’s lives,” Odenweller says. Whether consumers see fermentation-derived lactoferrin as a cleaner solution or simply a more expensive one may ultimately depend on the same thing shaping the broader colostrum debate: evidence. Until then, Caulfield offers an alternative: “Expensive placebos work better.”
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