Flavours & fragrances
wildwonder. “People don’t like empty calories these days. With gut health being the fastest growing health trend, we see a bigger demand for probiotics and prebiotics in delicious and convenient form factors such as beverages.” Ian Hadley, commercial director of Remedy UK, adds that there’s a gap in the market for low-sugar energy drinks in particular. “The UK sports and energy drinks market size increased by more than 22% in 2022, however, the category is dominated by drinks featuring excessive sugar and artificial ingredients at a time when three quarters of the UK population are looking to reduce or avoid sugar in their diet and are becoming increasingly aware of the potential negative implications of artificial sweeteners,” he says.
The shift towards wellness On the face of things, what people are drinking in any given year may not be all that illuminating. Fads come and go; consumer preferences can be fickle and we can’t necessarily derive a deeper meaning from every fluctuation in the market. That said, consumer preferences can often provide an interesting bellwether of social trends. The real story here is one that’s been playing out for a while. That’s the continued shift towards ‘wellness’ – a diffuse concept that consumers are coming to understand in a nuanced and sophisticated way. According to McKinsey’s Future of Wellness Survey, conducted in 2020, 79% of respondents across six countries said they believed wellness is important, while 42% considered it a top priority. Those figures had risen significantly over the past two to three years in every market they researched. That trend has continued post-Covid. According to Mintel’s The Future of Nutrition, Health and Wellness 2023 report, the pandemic has nudged consumers towards taking a more holistic approach to their health. This has led to more conscientious consumption, along with “a growing trend of using food as medicine to promote physical and mental well-being, as well as preventative health”. That means that while countertrends have come and gone – Flavorman’s 2022 report talked about full-sugar beverages seeing a resurgence in the premium market – the general trajectory is clear; consumers are interested in healthy beverages that don’t compromise on taste, and are becoming more discerning about what healthy means, with artificial sweeteners and even heavy use of fruit sugars no longer passing muster. To cite a few prominent examples, MOJU Drinks sells a range of ‘shots’ designed for various functional benefits – energy, immunity, gut health, for example – with no added sugar and a range of
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‘punchy’ flavours. Dash Drinks eliminates ‘fake flavours’ with simple fruit-infused water, while Acti-Vit’s fruit-flavoured water is packed with supplemental vitamins. Nexba claims that its range of kombucha, energy drinks and nootropics have eliminated over seven-billion grams of sugar from global diets to date. Then there’s wildwonder, which is greatly benefiting consumers’ gut health. Its founder and CEO, Rosa Li, was inspired by the healing drinks of her Chinese heritage, tonics filled with wild herbs and botanicals. Each can contains one-billion live probiotics and five-grams of prebiotic fibre, supported by functional herbs and fruits.
Uncomplicated citruses, berry blends and botanical extracts such as black tea and chamomile are thought to become the most popular beverage flavours.
“Whereas last year’s consumers ‘wanted bolder ingredients for nostalgic flavours with guilt-free indulgence’, this year ‘we’re seeing a shift to a more balanced, health-conscious trend’.”
“As the first sparkling beverage to combine both prebiotics and probiotics, wildwonder is the culmination of Eastern herbal philosophy and modern taste,” says the wildwonder spokesperson. “The five effervescent flavours provide a simple solution to gut health that’s free from the vinegary flavour of kombucha and bitter taste of traditional medicine.”
A boost for kombucha
Remedy Drinks, a leading UK and Australia-based kombucha brand, has been well-positioned to take advantage of this shift. Its founders, Sarah and Emmet Condon, started brewing kombucha in their kitchen in Melbourne and loved how the fermented concoction made them feel, not to mention how it tasted. That set them thinking about all the drinks in
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