The 2024 Expo season has come and gone, with trips to the Arnold Sports Festival, Natural Products Expo West, and the Vitamin Shoppeโs Brand Summit, and we saw some incredible new supplement launches.
But the main trend thatโs been impossible to ignore is the continued emergence of functional beverages in our market.
At each show, we were given a different glimpse at the present and future of energy drinks and beyond. We found some diamonds in the rough, as well as some products that we hope to never try again. Letโs recap what we saw and tease what weโll be doing next:
2024โs Functional Beverage Standouts
Here are some of the most interesting drink innovations in 2024:
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Karma Wellness Energy Water
Karma Energy Water features 150 milligrams of natural caffeine and 250 milligrams of Cognizinยฎ Citicoline! Thank you to Kyowa Hakko USA, the sponsor of this article
Coming into Expo West, we were already excited about Karma Wellness Energy Water, which is analyzed in the article linked above.
It sports a blend of ingredients that include 150 milligrams of natural caffeine and a clinically-backed dose of 250 milligrams of Cognizinยฎ citicoline. With that profile, we already knew itโd feel good and that we could drop by the Kyowa Hakko USA booth to grab one to get through the show.
What we didnโt know is how good the Blueberry Watermelon flavor would taste! It was a perfect combination of the two flavors, satisfying right to the end.
It was also great to see their patented push cap in action. This is a cap that you push down on, forcing the active ingredients into the bottle, so that theyโre mixed into the beverage right when you want to drink it.
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Pickle Juice?!
Itโs not pickle brine, but it is a combination of vinegar, electrolytes, dill oil, and other flavors to make a product trademarked โPickle Juiceโ!
Some of the best laughs came from the bottom floor of Expo West, where we were introduced to this Pickle Juice drink. Itโs made by a company that trademarked โPickle Juiceโ, but didnโt use what we normally think of as โpickle juiceโ in the beverage. They argued, after all, that you donโt actually juice a pickle to make the drink (itโs really brine), so traditional pickle juice isnโt juice anyway.
Well if youโre still following, itโs an electrolyte beverage made with zero sugar, instead relying on water, organic vinegar, salt, and organic dill oil to make it happen. And it indeed does taste like pickle brine!
With a taste profile like that, youโre either going to love it or hate it, and if you look at the reviews on Amazon, currently with a 4.5 rating after over 13,000 reviewsโฆ most people indeed love it! After all, if you donโt like pickle brine taste, youโre probably not going to buy it anyway. So this was definitely an interesting one.
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Drink Weird: The Grateful Dead Collab
In our corner of the world, weโve seen some incredible flavor collabs in energy drinks, and have been patiently waiting for an Iron Maiden collaboration (they already have a beer, after all). But guess what other legendary musical group beat them to the punch โ The Grateful Dead!
Drink Weirdโs collaboration with the Grateful Dead may not fit within our world of sports and active nutrition, but itโs a perfect fit for their brand!
Drink Weird has a 2024 lineup of โWeirdโ drinks, including Weird Yerba, Weird Tea, and Weird Water. This menu features beverage cans that live up to their names, most of them with three-eyed creatures on the front (yet some creatures have even more eyes).
Itโs the naturally-caffeinated Weird Yerba that has the famous Grateful Dead Dancing Bears on it, in flavors such as โGrateful Grapefruitโ. Definitely a cool vibe for the right customer โ each can has 160 milligrams of caffeine per can.
This leads us into the next theme:
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The Success of Lower-Caffeine Energy Drinks with Natural Caffeine
As users consume more beverages, theyโre finding that they need to reduce the load of caffeine in each one, and ingredients like Cognizinยฎ make that happen.
Chris Bumsteadโs Bum Energy Drink has an even-keeled 112 milligrams of natural caffeine and 250 milligrams of Cognizin.
The days of VPX BANG dominating the stage with their 300 milligrams of caffeine seem to be coming to an end, and weโre now seeing quite a few successful drinks bringing it back to 200 milligrams or less:
You can also note that they all have natural caffeine too.
So does this mean people are drinking less caffeine? Maybe. But more likely, theyโre drinking more energy drinks, and with these lower caffeine doses, you have two per day, which can get you to the 500 milligram Cognizin dosage, providing even greater scientific backing!
Cognizinยฎ Citicoline is dubbed the The Brain Choline not just because it provides choline, but because it also supplies cytidine, which is also needed for the synthesis of phosphatidylcholine
For instance, a 2021 study found that Cognizin citicoline improves memory in older adults, and in that trial, they used a total of 500 milligrams โ 250 twice daily!
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Gut Health Drinks that Actually Taste Good
Gut health drinks are nothing new on the market โ weโve long seen Kombucha drinks full of probiotics and digestive enzymes. Only now, the industryโs providing some gut health drinks that actually taste good to normal consumers!
One such example was Sun Sip Soda, a prebiotic soda made by Health-Ade, whoโs already known for their Kombucha. Sun Sip is basically a carbonated beverage with some juices and apple cider vinegar inside. It also includes small amounts of zinc and selenium, two minerals we love that we see get ignored by the beverage industry all too often.
All in all, great times were had at Expo West with Kyowa and friends. But thereโs more comingโฆ
Whatโs Coming Next? Stay tuned to PricePlow
One thing we have to mention is that MacroCap Labs, the industryโs premier energy drink manufacturer, had a booth at the Arnold Sports Festival, and we got together to ideate a cool beverage to sample our favorite ingredients. When it happens, it will have Cognizin inside, of course. Stay tuned to PricePlowโs alerts on Energy Drinks below, weโll have a lot more of that coming.