BUSINESS
STRATEGIES
PUTTING THE BUZZ INTO
energy drinks
With consumers of energy drinks
showing no signs of losing their
thirst, the demand for efficacious
ingredients has never been higher.
LYNDA SEARBY reports on the most
popular of these ingredients and
their uses
It’s been around for two decades, but
Red Bull is still the undisputed daddy
of energy drinks, commanding half of
the US market for energy drinks, and
up to 80 per cent of the market in some
other countries.
The brand, which was transformed
from a primitive Thai brew into a global
success story by Austrian entrepreneur
Dietrich Mateschitz, wrote a new chapter
in marketing history and single-handedly
pioneered a dynamic new category.
Most players that have entered the
energy-drinks market since have followed
the Red Bull recipe – using a combination of caffeine and taurine as the energygiving formula. But there are signs that
other energy ingredients are starting to
make their mark, too.
Broadly speaking, energy ingredients fall into two camps: stimulants and
nutrients. With its fast-acting energy
release, caffeine is the most widely used
stimulant and can either be synthetic or
natural. In recent years, the consumer
love affair with all things natural has
bolstered demand for natural-source caffeine, catapulting names like guarana,
maté and kola nut from obscurity into
everyday usage.
Guarana
Guarana berries grow in Venezuela and
Brazil, where they have been eaten by
natives for years for their alertness and
energy-giving effect; this is due to their
caffeine content – which is about twice as
high as that of coffee – and the presence
For more on better-for-you sweeteners, see ‘Formulations’ on page 22.
14 • FUNCTIONAL INGREDIENTS • DECEMBER 2007
of theobromine and theophylline.
US botanical-extract specialist Blue
California sells a natural water-soluble
guarana extract with 22 per cent caffeine.
“Unlike most guarana extracts on the
market, it is not fortified with synthetic
or natural caffeine,” says Cecilia McCollum, executive vice president. Blue California also produces a micro-encapsulated form of guarana extract that offers
sustained energy for four hours.
UK botanical ingredient supplier William Ransom says guarana currently is the
most popular energy ingredient with food
and beverage manufacturers. “We get so
many requests for guarana,” says senior development technologist Farhana Rahman.
“I think the reason is because the concentration of caffeine is so much higher than
with other botanicals.”
William Ransom sells guarana in soft
extract form. Soft extracts are concentrated extracts without residual solvent,
typically containing a minimum 70 per
cent of total solids (the remainder being
water) from the named plant.
William Ransom also markets other
ingredients that offer a natural source of
caffeine, including kola nut (cola) and
maté, from the yerba maté tree that grows
in Paraguay.
At French plant extract manufacturer Naturex, maté extract, standardised to two per cent caffeine and
0.2 per cent theobromine, goes under
the name ‘YerbaLean.’
Green tea
Green tea is another caffeine-containing botanical extract that is fi nding
its way into energy drinks, the most
obvious example being Enviga, the
functionalingredientsmag.com
energy drink marketed by Coca Cola
and Nestlé. Besides its caffeine content, which is about half that of black
tea, green tea is rich in antioxidants,
and specifically EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate), an antioxidant that
‘burns calories.’ Th is claim is backed
by studies that have shown that when
EGCG and caffeine are present at the
levels comparable to that in three cans
of Enviga, people can experience an
average increase in calorie burning of
60-100 calories.
The same chemical component in
green tea is also thought to contribute
to heart health. A Japanese study earlier
this year, for example, found that adults
drinking five or more cups of green tea
daily were 16 per cent less likely to die
from a range of illnesses, particularly
heart disease, than those only drinking
one cup per day.
The growing body of evidence in
support of green tea is likely to stand it
in good stead going forward, as energydrink makers eager to break out of the
‘Red Bull mould’ look to develop drinks
that deliver not only an energy boost, but
also some additional nutritional or health
benefit, a trend that can already be observed in markets such as the UK.
“Many of the newer drinks come
with added vitamins or some other functionality - they are not just energy drinks.
I think there has been a slight shift away
from the straightforward energy drink of
five or six years ago,” says Rahman.
This observation is backed up by
Lorraine Bailey, nutrition manager at
UK health ingredient solutions provider
Naturis, who says: “The consumer is
learning more about energy products, so
we are seeing demand for ‘better’ energy
drinks, and products that offer health
benefits. There is a definite place for
the caffeine-loaded drink, but there is a
growing need in the market for drinks
that, besides energy, offer the consumer
a tangible health benefit.”
While well-researched ingredients
will benefit from this trend, ingredients
that rely on shakier evidence for their infunctionalingredientsmag.com
clusion on energy-drink labels might find
themselves out in the cold, particularly in
Europe, where new legislation designed
to crack down on dubious or unsubstantiated claims has just come into force.
B5 particularly important for energy
production and oxygen utilisation. Most
energy drinks include a combination of
B vitamins,” says DSM’s global business
manager Alan Abolencia.
Ginseng
One botanical extract that may suffer
is ginseng, as although new age medical experts hark back to its use in Chinese medicine 2,000 years
ago, the jury is still out on
whether it actually has any
effect on energy levels. This
is probably the reason why
although ginseng is often
featured in energy drinks,
it is rarely positioned as the
primary active ingredient.
L-carnitine
The amino acid L-carnitine also assists
energy generation by increasing the oxidation of fatty acids.
Coenzyme Q10
Besides caffeine-containing ingredients, the other
group of energy ingredients is energy nutrients, or
ingredients that assist with
the body’s energy production process.
Coenzyme Q10 is one
such ingredient. Found in
the mitochondria, co-Q10
is required for all cellular
metabolism. Deficiencies
in co-Q10 can lead to inefficient energy metabolism
and low energy or fatigue
and muscle soreness.
Blue California markets a micro-encapsulated,
water-soluble form of coQ10, which, according to a
study carried out in Japan,
is five times more bioavail- Photo courtesy Blue California
able than regular co-Q10.
DSM Nutritional Products brands its
“The main function of L-carnitine
co-Q10 ingredient ALL-Q. ALL-Q uses
is the transport of activated long-chain
DSM’s Actilease beadlet technology for
fatty acids from the cytosol into the miimproved stability and bioavailability.
tochondria, where their oxidation takes
DSM also counts the B complex vitaplace,” explains Ulla Freitas, manager
mins in its portfolio of energy ingredients.
scientific marketing, nutrition, with
“B vitamins are typically known as
Lonza, the Swiss company behind the
the energy vitamins, with B2, B3 and
L-carnitine ingredient Carnipure. >>
DECEMBER 2007 • FUNCTIONAL INGREDIENTS • 15
BUSINESSSTRATEGIES
“The fatty acids cannot enter the mitochondria without L-carnitine but need
to get there for the generation of energy.
Studies have shown that supplementation with Carnipure can increase the
oxidation of fatty acids – and thus energy generation – in healthy adults.”
For beverage applications, Lonza
has developed Carnipure 50% in water,
a liquid version of L-carnitine.
Ingredients like L-carnitine and
co-Q10 have historically been used in
sports-nutrition products rather than
mainstream energy drinks. However,
as the boundary between the two
blurs, this is changing, according to
DSM’s Abolencia.
“I think the distinction between
energy and sport products is becoming less clear. Sports nutrition used to
be about recovery after exercise, using
electrolytes, etc. In addition, sports
nutrition products could contain proteins or other ingredients like creatine
and L-carnitine, which also helped
with muscle recovery and fat metabolism. The growth of the so-called
energy-drinks category has launched a
whole new category of products, which
in many cases combines the functional
attributes of both sports and energy
products. Products like Enviga contain caffeine for the energy boost but
also EGCG from green tea, which is
known to improve fat metabolism.”
Other examples of
energy drinks containing sports-nutrition
ingredients include
Lost Energy Drink
(L-carnitine), Hansen’s Energy Deuce (Lcarnitine), and Liquid
Ice (co-Q10).
ENERGY
DRINKS
Sexual performance
It’s not just sports-drink ingredients that
are crossing over into mainstream energy
drinks, but also ingredients for enhancing sexual performance.
MACA IS SAID TO ENHANCE BOTH ENERGY
AND SEXUAL PERFORMANCE
Until recently, Chicago firm SourceOne marketed its proprietary blend of
the South East Asian tree-root extract eurycoma longifolia under the name LJ100
Tongkat Ali, for sexual enhancement and
sports-nutrition applications.
While it was a moniker that
worked for these markets, SourceOne
realised that it could jeopardise the ingredient’s potential in other markets,
and has rebranded the ingredient ActivAli as part of a strategy to market the
ingredient to a much broader audience
on the basis of its endurance-, stam-
TOTAL VOLUME
- MN LITRES
ina- and strength-promoting properties – claims that are substantiated by
clinical studies.
The Peruvian root maca is another
ingredient that works both in sexual-enhancement applications and on a broader
energy- and stamina-promoting platform.
French firm Naturex sources maca
from the central Peruvian Highlands
via partnerships with local growers, to
produce MacaPure, a highly concentrated extract, via a proprietary extraction process. MacaPure extract is standardised to 0.6 per cent macamides
and macaenes – the active components
shown to have benefits on sexual function. Its efficacy is backed by several
clinical studies and four patents.
Naturex also manufactures a watersoluble extract called MacaTonic. Rich in
plant sterols, amino acids and polysaccharides, MacaTonic contains no caffeine.
Carbs and sugars
There is a third group of ingredients that
finds its way into most energy drinks: macronutrients such as carbohydrates or sugars.
While most sugars are added to energy drinks purely for their sweetening
and energy-giving attributes, D-ribose, a
naturally occurring five-carbon sugar has
been shown to enhance energy levels and
improve heart function. It is about half
as sweet as sucrose, and rather than spike
blood-sugar level, D-ribose lowers it.
Minneapolis-based life sciences company Bioenergy produces its brand of Dribose, RIBOSE, which is widely used
in foods and drinks designed for energy
enhancement, such as Glaceau Vitamin
Water and Vitamin energy drinks, PepsiCo’s MDX, AriZona’s Extreme Energy
Shot drink, and Detour energy bar by
Next Proteins. Fi
PERIOD GROWTH
FORECAST
2001
2006
2001-06
%
2001-06
CAGR %
2001-06
Absolute
2006-11
%
2006-11
CAGR %
2006-11
Absolute
World
1096.4
2429.4
121.6
17.2
1333
45.5
7.8
1104.7
USA
151.1
903.7
498.1
43
752.6
64.3
10.4
580.9
Western
Europe
221.5
437.5
97.5
14.6
216
54.8
9.1
239.7
Source: ©2007 Euromonitor International
16 • FUNCTIONAL INGREDIENTS • DECEMBER 2007
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