Dietary supplements are getting more expensive in Kazakhstan while demand in unit terms is falling: in the first half of 2026, the weighted average price of a single pack exceeded 1,700 tenge, up 15.3% year on year, while pharmacy sales declined, the website infohub.kz reports.
According to EnergyProm data cited by finratings, pharmacies across the country sold about 30 million packs of supplements in January–June 2026, down from more than 33 million packs a year earlier. Sales thus fell by roughly 3 million packs.
Prices, meanwhile, were accelerating: in January, supplements cost on average 13.5% more than a year earlier, but by June the gap had widened to 18.3%. Experts attribute the increase primarily to inflation, as well as to a steady stream of new products and an expanding range of supplements.
Despite the decline in unit sales, household spending on supplements rose: in the first half of 2026 it was up 2% compared with the same period a year earlier. Overall, Kazakhs spent 409 billion tenge on medicines and supplements, against 404 billion tenge a year earlier.
The share of supplements in total pharmacy sales is also growing: it stood at 11% in the first half of 2024 and reached 14% in January–June 2026. In other words, shoppers are buying fewer packs but spending more money.
The situation is particularly striking in the vitamins import market. In January–June 2026, the total volume of vitamins, provitamins and their derivatives amounted to 245.1 tonnes — 41.3% more than a year earlier. Of that, 242.4 tonnes came from imports, while domestic output accounted for only 2.7 tonnes, even though it grew 50% year on year.
The share of domestically produced goods in total vitamin resources was just 1.1%, meaning Kazakhstan is almost entirely dependent on vitamin imports. Domestic sales of vitamins, provitamins and their derivatives reached 235.8 tonnes in the first six months of 2026 — 37.5% more than a year earlier.
EnergyProm notes that the rise in imports may be linked to shifting demand and stockpiling in pharmacy and wholesale-retail networks ahead of the autumn season. In 2025, the most notable sales growth came in the autumn: 42.5 tonnes of vitamins were sold domestically in September — almost 11 times more than in the same month a year earlier — while November sales rose 3.6-fold.
In January–June 2026, the figures fluctuated from month to month: sales ranged from 26 to 54.9 tonnes, with the highest volumes recorded in March and May.
As is known, supplements are not medicines and often have no proven efficacy, sometimes working through the placebo effect. Kursiv Health has reported that mandatory labelling of supplements has been in force in Kazakhstan since the start of September 2026, and buyers can now check a product themselves using its barcode.