The ingredients for successful beverage launches

Energy and sweetness reduction top the list of new mainstream beverage launches, while the ‘health and wealth’ sector is changing how we think of drinks.

Todd Runestad, Content Director, SupplySideSJ.com

July 9, 2019

2 Min Read
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Carbonated soft drinks (CSDs)are on the decline and have been for 10 years. This consumer shift has heralded the way for functional beverages like coconut waters, acai products, coffee and energy drinks. 

Sports beverages now include ingredients for energy, muscle gain, focus and recovery to support the individual needs of active consumers. An important offshoot of sports nutrition is the energy shot category.

Today, energy and sweetness reduction top the list of mainstream shifts in beverage innovation.

In the “health and wealth” sector, niches abound that create opportunity for beverage marketers—from waters based on things like maple syrup and celery to natural colors and preservatives, plant proteins and the promise of the de-sugaring of fruit.

“We cannot move too quickly on removing sugar and continuing growth of the functional ingredient inclusions,” said Jim Tonkin, president of Healthy Brand Builders beverage consultancy. “Not all will taste great or be sweet enough for the American palate. Bring on the function, low/no sugar, and the parade of new and better for you.”

Premium-priced high-pressure processing (HPP) uses simple pressure and heat to pasteurize and extract nutritional compounds. The result is a new taste sensation that’s said to preserve the best parts of fruits and vegetables—and at a kingly price point manufacturers and marketers love.

Infusing cannabis into beverages is starting to ramp up. In Canada, which legalized straight-up get-high marijuana, consumers will soon see the emergence of the cannabis beverage category with an intoxicant based on THC (tetrahydrocannabinol).

In the U.S. market, CBD beverages are already a thing as the ingredient continues its march across the landscape in every delivery format innovators can think up. 

For beverage formulators, selecting the right beverage sweetener solution is usually driven by sugar-reduction goals.

The stevia/rebaudioside A (Reb A) revolution has fundamentally changed the innovation portfolio for beverage manufacturers and marketers. After FDA approved stevia as a sweetener in 2008—specifically for Coca-Cola to use Cargill’s Reb-A stevia—Cargill alone over the ensuing decade has replaced more than 500 million pounds of sugar globally with its stevia products, and another 2 billion pounds of sugar globally with its stevia and polyol combination products, said Andy Ohmes, Cargill’s global director of high intensity sweeteners. That’s an overall reduction of more than 3 trillion calories in the last five years.

This is an abridged version of an article found in INSIDER’s beverages digital magazine. Download the magazine to read the full article. 

About the Author

Todd Runestad

Content Director, SupplySideSJ.com, SupplySide Supplement Journal

Todd Runestad has been writing on nutrition science news since 1997. He is content director for SupplySide Supplement Journal and its digital magazines. Other incarnations: content director for Natural Products Insider (now rebranded to SupplySide Supplement Journal), supplements editor for NewHope.com, Delicious Living!, and Natural Foods Merchandiser. Former editor-in-chief of Functional Ingredients magazine and still covers raw material innovations and ingredient science.

Connect with me here on LinkedIn.

Specialty

Todd writes about nutrition science news such as this story on mitochondrial nutrients, innovative ingredients such as this story about 12 trendy new ingredient launches from SupplySide West 2023, and is a judge for the NEXTY awards honoring innovation, integrity and inspiration in natural products including his specialty — dietary supplements. He extensively covered the rise and rise and rise and fall of cannabis hemp CBD. He helps produce in-person events at SupplySide West and SupplySide East trade shows and conferences, including the wildly popular Ingredient Idol game show, as well as Natural Products Expo West and Natural Products Expo East and the NBJ Summit. He was a board member for the Hemp Industries Association.

Education / Past Lives

In previous lives Todd was on the other side of nature from natural products — natural history — as managing editor at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. He's sojourned to Burning Man and Mount Everest. He graduated many moons ago from the State University of New York College at Oneonta.

Quotes

"There is not a colds-and-flu season. There is a vitamin D-deficiency season."

"There is no such thing as inclement weather. Only improper attire."

Link answers question, "When taking magnesium, should you also take vitamin D3 2,000 IU?"

"Cannabis is nature's most nearly perfect plant."

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