Brimming Opportunities for Nutraceutical Beverages

The market for nutraceutical beverages continues to be a healthy onein more ways than one. The impetus for growth in this category, according to Dennis J. Reid, vice president marketing and business development, SensoryEffects, Defiance, OH, is the continual quest for proactive health and alternative medicine through our foods, as a way to stave off chronic health issues. He notes the trend has grown beyond the lesser evil foods which eliminate the bad components like trans-fats, cholesterol and sugars, and has evolved more to how can we enhance and optimize the good components, like antioxidants, vitamins and minerals, select herbs, and other nutritional ingredients.

Drinking in the possiblities

While it seems that many nutraceutical beverages coming to market fall into the me too category, this is one area of product development where entrepreneurial innovation continues to drive the market, especially in the category of energy beverages. (Witness the blog run by a presumably under 35-year-old who reviews every energy drink he/she can find at taurinerules.com who claims to have sampled more than 800 energy drinks.)

The most-popular categories that we see emerging in the beverage category are still energy beverages aimed mainly at young consumers, drinks with vitamin and mineral fortification, antioxidant or high-polyphenol beverages containing ingredients like green teas or berries, and drinks with select herbs, says Emilio Gutierrez, R.Ph., M.B.A, vice president technical services, BI Nutraceuticals, Long Beach, CA.

However, these are not by any means the only prevalent options. Smoothies continue to grow in popularity because the have a very positive health perception and can be customized and built to have very specific nutritional targets, whether it be for energy, fat-burning, or mental acuity, notes Reid. The sports-performance segment also continues to prosper with the protein-enriched nutritional shakes and the after-exercise recovery drinks. This trend ties directly back to people trying to get more active and supplement this activity with food and beverage products that make it more easy or effective.

Categories such as hearth health and womens health are currently not as popular as some of these other broad categories, observes Gutierrez probably because they are too specific, and that functional beverages seem to still be an emerging category in the United States. However, that leaves the field that much clearer for innovation.

Thierry Jones, general manager-North America, Diana Naturals, Valley Cottage, NY, believes that consumers concerns about health and a growing interest in natural are the main drivers for nutraceutical beverages. He sees the beauty from withinanti-aging and immunity productscategory one of the growing market segments. While natural ingredients in beverages are a worldwide trend, the concept is not as strong in the United States as it is in Europe or Asia, he says. In the United States, manufacturers will artificially add back the actives that have been removed during processing, rather than working to preserve the nutrients in the original ingredient.

Best bets

Nutraceutical beverages that emerge on the market typically reflect the current health concerns of consumers, including brain health, heart health, immunity, beauty from the inside out, energy and womens health. People are also looking for beverages that easily add needed vitamins and minerals missing from their diets, and for the inclusion of herbs and antioxidants. The savvy formulator needs to know which cocktail of ingredients is targeted to address these health concerns.

Brain-health ingredients include choline, Ginkgo biloba, phosphatidyl serine (marketed as a brain booster and to help the elderly with declining mental function and depression) and L-theanine (some studies say it is shown to reduce mental and physical stress, may produce feelings of relaxation, and improve cognition and mood when taken with caffeine).

Heart health is of great concern today, as heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women in the United States. Incorporating hearth-healthy ingredients into products is especially attractive to the older consumer. These ingredients include beta glucan, carotenoids, grape seed extract, phytosterols and theaflavins.

Immunity comes about through proper nutrition, but with todays busy lifestyles, proper nutrition is often lacking. Ingredients such Astragalus (Chinese root), Echinacea and probiotic cultures are most-frequently added to beverages to aid immunity.

Beauty from within products generally aim to benefit skin health, but are ingested rather than applied topically. Some of these ingredients include vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, Aloe vera and pine bark extract, as well as fruit- and vegetable-based products that have naturally occurring vitamins and carotenoids.

Ingredients, especially natural ingredients, that offer an energy boost are attractive to younger consumers. These include caffeine and caffeine-containing herbs like guarana, yerba maté and kola nut, Panax ginseng, and amino acids such as L-taurine and L-arginine.

Supplemental ingredients for womens health are especially of interest to peri- and menopausal women. Phytoestrogens, dong quai, black cohosh and red clover are all ingredients suited to beverages marketed to aid women.

Antioxidants are perhaps some of the most-talked-about ingredients added to beverages or available naturally in many juices. This speaks to the popularity of beverages such as pomegranate juice and green tea. Products such as goji berry, açaí berry, grapeseed extract and multi-berry blends are all in the antioxidant category. Pure ingredients that have antioxidant properties include alpha-lipoic acid, blueberry extract, coenzyme Q10, polyphenols, soy isoflavones and citrus bioflavonoids.

Vitamins and minerals are easily accepted by consumers, because they are already familiar with many of them. Vitamins and minerals are one of the few categories that consumers are willing to take based solely on faith, because they know it is good for them, and they dont expect to feel different or experience a noticeable therapeutic effect, offers Gutierrez.

Making it drinkable

In addition to choosing targeted ingredients, manufacturers of nutraceutical beverages must also create an acceptable product. As a stepping-off point, formulators may want to ask if the consumer wants the flavors of these beverages to have a healthy aura or can they be more indulgent? There really is no clear answer, says Reid: Both have their places and can be mixed and matched to provide more variety in choices. The most popular shake flavor is still vanilla, but add a little dark chocolate fudge and it becomes more indulgent....yet still healthy. The tropical fruits are still driving the new flavors in many categories, mainly due to their perceived nutritional benefits due to higher levels of favorable antioxidants, but they also are very exotic and novel when it comes to their flavor profiles.

But choosing the base flavor is only half the battle. Nutritious, functional ingredients can come with everything from a bitter taste, to an unpalatable flavor, to an unpleasant mouthfeel. A drink that has off flavors or an odd mouthfeel wont attract many customers, even if the beverage is way above average in its healthful benefits. This can be a challenge, because not only do some ingredients carry their own flavor burdens, some may not dissolve well or can quickly degrade on the shelf or interact with other ingredients in the beverage formulation.

The first major characteristic of concern with any ingredient added to a beverage product is that of taste, says Gutierrez. He notes that many nutraceutical ingredients have unpleasant, mainly bitter notes that could require creative formulating to maskcaffeine and ginseng are two such notorious ingredients. More often than not, a product is sent back to be reformulated numerous times until the most sensitive of palates is satisfied, he says.

Often, young entrepreneurs with a new idea for an energy drink approach Gutierrez and ask him to come up with an acceptable product. They want the beverages to have all the perceived desirable ingredients at sufficient levels without realizing the off flavors that may result.

The simplest approaches to flavor or odor masking, Gutierrez explains, are diluting a product with an inert carrier or blending in a suitable flavor that overpowers the unpleasant taste or odor, or doing a little bit of both. Tart flavors, such as citric acid, malic acid and ascorbic acid (vitamin C), are ideal for masking bitter flavors. Salty products also are effective for masking a bitter aftertaste and improving mouthfeel.

Encapsulation is sometimes an option, but difficult in beverages. A highly effective alternative to mask unpleasant tastes and odors would be to coat the particles in a fluid-bed agglomerator, Gutierrez adds. Typical coatings consist of waxy or fatty substances with inert or desirable flavors. This process would best work in a product that is not soluble and is to be reconstituted into a thick suspension at the time of consumption. However, this method is more suitable for beverages that come in powdered form. In ready-to-drink (RTD) beverages, the coating on the agglomerated particles would either dissolve before the product is consumed, or would cause the suspended particles to have an undesirable, gritty consistency. You could make an RTD beverage that had an insoluble coating around the particles in something like a thick shake, he says.

Solutions for solubility

The second most-important issue to address in formulating nutraceutical beverages is solubility. Often, solubility issues prevent manufacturers from adding enough of an ingredient to give a beverage the desired level of health benefit.

In terms of processing, solubility remains a challenge, especially in clear beverages or clear packaging, which is a big part of the U.S. market, says Jones. In the United States, he says, there are two schools of thought: those who are interested in clear products such as vitamin-fortified waters, and those looking for smoothie-type products, which can include some pulp. While we work with both types of customers, our products are more suited to the pulpy products, which allow us to retain more-intense nutrient profiles, nicer colors and additional fiber in the product, he says. This simply isnt possible in fully clarified products.

However, keep in mind that the type of drink depends not just on the nutritional ingredients, but also greatly upon the actual use that the consumer has intended, observes Reid. Both formats have a place: for example the nutritional shakes definitely are expected to be more viscous, thick, and creamy because they are loaded with protein and other functional ingredients that deliver healthy, sustained energy when consumed prior to a workout. However, on the other end of the workout, the recovery drinks need to be more water-like and refreshing with ingredients that replenish what was lost during exercise or enhance the ability to recover and quickly get back to the rest of their daily routine.

When it comes to the ingredients, though, its difficult to drastically change a products solubility profile without using undesirable solvents or getting into serious chemistry at the molecular level, says Gutierrez. In many instances, a good dispersion will suffice, he explains, and this can sometimes be achieved by modifying particle size and surface area through milling; by emulsifying, in the case of oil-water dispersions; by spray drying; or by fluid-bed agglomerating with soluble carriers.

A stable environment

Stability enhancement is another important issue in beverage development. In the presence of water, Gutierrez says, you concern yourself much more with product stability, the need for preservatives and potential interaction between ingredients. The problems created range from reduced shelf life to off flavors and the loss of potency of the active ingredients. In RTD beverages, product stability can sometimes be improved by carefully controlling and maintaining the product pH, he says.

Some ingredients are naturally stable and thus withstand light, heat and pHeven some who have a reputation for needing special handling. For example, some natural probiotic ingredients can withstand the heat of hot beverages and the pasteurization process, and the acidic pH in the stomach. For all probiotics, the toughest thing to create is a shelf-stable product. There are a couple of technologies that help that, but we mostly stay away from that, says Mike Bush, vice president of business development, Ganeden Biotech, Mayfield Heights, OH. With us, nature handled all of our engineering for us. We had to develop proprietary particle size, which involved beefing up the particle size so that it would stay inside of a tea bag. We didnt need to worry about encapsulation.

Taking the natural way

One of the more difficult decisions to make is whether to use natural vs. artificial ingredients. Being able to make a natural claim is desirable, especially on a beverage that purports to be healthy, but its becoming more and more difficult to figure out what exactly is, and is not, natural.

Herbs are easy to categorize as natural, Gutierrez says, even when dealing with the herbal extracts, but it begins to become more complicated with vitamins. Some are available in natural grades, but they are often not commercially available or economically attractive. Others, like vitamin B12, begin with natural ingredients, but after a fermentation process and numerous chemical reactions, it is hard to consider the final product as all-natural, he says. The same holds for many amino acids. Processing begins with well-known starting ingredients, such as sucrose, but they undergo numerous chemical reactions to create the final active ingredients as we know them.

Its safe to say that many new beverages will be made more palatable with the inclusion of rebaudioside A, a sweetener derived from the Stevia rebiana plant that recently got the go-ahead from FDA. While the sweetener doesnt make claim to any health benefits per se, it does provide sweetness without excessive calories, unlike other natural sweeteners currently on the market.

Niche markets

Myriad ingredients can be added to beverages. Protein additions are mostly concentrated in soy and dairy beverages, such as smoothies and yogurt-like beverages. These beverages appeal to those looking for a protein boost, such as athletes, and to women experiencing peri- and menopausal symptoms, who can benefit from soy protein and its isoflavones.

Beverages with fiber added are attractive to those with digestive disorders and those concerned with weight management. Although many fiber ingredients are completely dissolvable and have no flavor, fiber-enriched beverages are more likely to show up in the supplement and pharmaceutical markets.

Juices, including powders and concentrates, are the first ingredients of choice. Of special importance are the superfruits, which are often produced in lower volume, but have a high value and attract a high-end niche. These products are naturally high in antioxidants and provide other nutritional benefits.

For the weight-loss market, an extract from the South Asian fruit Garcinia cambogia has been clinically shown in several studies to induce satiety, suppress appetite and inhibit fat production without stimulating the central nervous system, according to InterHealth Nutraceuticals, Inc., Benecia, CA. One clinical study showed that overweight people taking 500 mg of InterHealths Garcinia cambogia extract in juice three times per day for two weeks sustained satiety while significantly reduced caloric intake by 15% to 30% compared to the control (International Journal of Obesity, 2002;26:870-872).

Maltodextrins act an energy source in many nutraceutical beverages. They have a low osmolality, are a readily digestible source of carbohydrate and are often used to add body to beverages, providing them with a richer mouthfeel. They help round-out the flavor profile of a beverage, moderate sweetness, have a clean flavor profile, provide good clarity in both dry mixes and aseptically processed beverages, and are safe for those with celiac disease.

What is really advantageous about maltodextrins in beverages is the low osmolality trait, explains Susan Freers, technical manager, pharmaceutical/personal care applications, Grain Processing Corp., Muscatine, IA. If, for example, you are an athlete and consume a beverage with high osmolality, you might be in danger of dangerous dehydration since that beverage would pull the fluid out of your tissues. With the lower osmolality, you can get more energy into the athlete, or patient in a hospital, without risk of dehydration. Maltodextrins are often used in beverages geared to athletes and for hospital supplements.

Whileother than legal constraints for foods and dietary supplementstheres not too many limits on what goes into a nutraceutical beverage, Consumers still need to rely on their common sense, cautions Gutierrez. The presence of healthy ingredients in a product does not make the product healthy. You should still monitor calories, fat, sodium content, etc., and eat what is truly healthy. Beverages, he says, often contain less of the desired ingredients than what you would find in a supplement, or even in the natural food product.

This results from high costs and formulation challenges that prevent you from including what you would like, or from safety concerns, says Gutierrez. The beverage manufacturer needs to ensure that the product is as safe for the occasional consumer as it is for the heavy consumer who may consume several servings a day beyond the label recommendations.

Still, the choices for nutraceutical beverages are almost unlimited. But, in the end, there are places for all value levers like lesser evil, organic, non-GMO, enriched, etc., but it all comes down to taste and value, says Reid. No matter what, it still has to taste good.......and in toadys tough economic times, the consumer needs to feel that it is worth the price they pay to get it.

Nancy Backas is a Chicago-based freelance writer and chef. She has been writing about food and the foodservice industry for more than 20 years and can be reached at [email protected].