Our Ingredient of the Year: Mind and Mood award celebrates the most innovative ingredients designed to support cognitive performance, emotional wellbeing and brain health. Eligible entries may include ingredients targeting cognition, memory, focus, alertness, mood, stress, relaxation, sleep, brain recovery and the gut-brain axis, including nootropics, adaptogens and other emerging nutritional solutions.

From helping students and gamers enhance concentration to supporting busy professionals in managing stress, sleep and mental clarity, this award recognizes ingredients that address the evolving needs of today's consumers.

Our Judges looked at how your ingredient meets specific needs and based their scores on the evidence to demonstrate:

• A genuine consumer demand or requirement based upon a common issue or risk factor
• Solid scientific evidence to demonstrate a unique nutritional solution to this need or problem – including peer reviewed data to back up any performance or health claims made
• Commercial success and engagement from your core target market(s). Give numbers and examples of sales and applications that are available in the market
• What gives your ingredient the ‘X factor’ – something that makes it stand out from the crowd and edge out the competition (including evidence to back up claims)

To view the entry questions for this category in the U.S., click to download

REQUIREMENT: Entries for the NutraIngredients USA Awards, Ingredient of the Year categories were required to have the ingredient in a finished product that is commercially available in the U.S.