Good Day!
I'm developing a business plan for a sports energy gel company.
I'm just starting and I need some industry information such as market size,
main competitors(U.S., Canadian, elsewhere),industry overview, annual
sales of main competitors, or just about any market analysis and
market segmentation information, etc. It would be great to obtain some
information/financials, etc. from companies such as Power Gel, Clif
Shots, GU, E-gel, etc. If possible I would basically like to find hard
numbers on the value of the market in the U.S. and maybe Canada and anything I
could include in my business plan to help the bank decide to loan me
some money!
Best Regards,
Matthew

Obviously, the easiest thing is to buy a market report, but they are
very expensive. If you cannot afford it, you can bild (or re-build)
the picture of the market you are interested on by looking at many
report samples and news, press releases, etc. and pick up the little
pieces of the puzzle.
Have a look to the following links to get those little pieces that I
am talking about:
http://www.canadean.com/richtext.asp?page_id=3&content_id=74
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/051215/20051215005043.html?.v=1
http://www.nutraingredients.com/news/ng.asp?id=48941-red-bull-provides
http://www.marketresearch.com/browse.asp?categoryid=476&g=1
http://www.just-drinks.com/store/products_detail.asp?art=23256&lk=nd02
http://www.the-infoshop.com/study/mt31868-energy-drinks.html

Another approach is that you estimate yourself the market size.
For example:
Population of your market target: How many people are in your market
segment (people between 18-44 years? approx. 100'000'000 people in the
US (source: http://www.census.gov/statab/www/pop.html )

How many of them play any sport regularly? Let's guess... 5%? 
That is 5'000'000 people is your potential market

How many of them would take a gel energy drink? Perhaps the 20 % of them?
That makes 1'000'000 people could be taking gel energy drinks

How much does it cost an average gel energy drink? (a)
How many drinks does a person would take by year? (b)
Multiply (a) and (b)by 1'000'000 and you'll have the estimated annual
market in dollars for gel energy drinks in the US.

I am certain about the population data, because I took it from the US
Census office. Revise my "guesstimations", because I have no idea
about how many people are doing excercises or drinking gel energy
drinks in the US. I guess you could easily find data to better refine
these figures.

I hope that you have got the idea behind this excercise of market estimation.

Best wishes,
Tateti

You can buy the company profile of PowerBar for 29 US at
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/product-compint-0000273466-page.html

Another idea:
go to a public library with access to Dialog databases. 
Ask the librarian to perform a search for you.
She could use the following strategy for market share data:
http://training.dialog.com/quick/solutions/4179.html

Have a look to the different solutions and select the most convenient for you:
http://training.dialog.com/quick/solutions/

Good luck!

Tateti