The beverage industry is willing to bet billions on the latter. Just last week PepsiCo agreed to buy upstart pre-biotic ‘functional’ soda start-up Poppi for $2B. Now Poppi competitor Olipop has been valued at $1.5B after an eagerly-consumed new public offering…
Pre-biotics support the proliferation of pro-biotics in your gut.
Pro-biotics directly help you fight inflammation, immune
system deficiencies and other chronic conditions…
Rarely do we hear about untested, unproven companies or business models attracting such monu-mental sums. But now, we’ve been regaled with trumpets over two such examples in the same week…
What’s the deal, anyway?
The fizzy drink industry has been rushing to buy or worm it’s way into the ‘functional’ beverages sector. That’s fertile new ground identified by multiple studies and surveys last year that pegged sodas and their ilk as the primary vector for getting beneficial pre-biotic substances into the bodies of those who meed them most. Who have been spotlighted as kids and young adults who drink the most soda and have, potentially, the weakest metabolisms and gut biomes.
Trends interrupted…
A previously reported alcoholic bev trend toward lighter-alcohol, ‘softer’ recreational options such as spritzers, coolers and so on had been preoccupying the parallel soda industry for a couple of years – until pre-biotics came along. The former was not only an attempt to expand sales, but address the eternal quest for ‘healthier’, low- or no-alcohol drinks.
But with the explosion in pre-biotics, the soda companies saw a ideal way to get a piece of an all-new category. And one that had the added advantage of getting soda makers into new territory without associating themselves in any way with some other ‘unhealthy’ entity such as alcohol.
Truly, a race…
Three things happened almost in the blink of an eye… New, pre-biotic beverage brands started popping up all over the map. And established recreational drink brands started casting about for opportunities to acquire ‘going concerns’ in the new sector. Of course, the big soda brands also pursued the option of developing their own brand of pre-biotics. But they were terrified of being left behind the new kids and he competition if they ‘toed the line’.
Earlier this year, Coca Cola announced it would release it’s own brand of pre-biotic-enhanced soda – simply called ‘Simply’ soda – later this year. Then, Pepsi fell behind perennial soda sector leader Coke AND former third-party competitor Dr. pepper for the first time in the international soda brand popularity ratings.
Pepsi, which had been developing its own brand of pre-biotics in parallel with Coke, dropped its trouble-plagued effort to simply buy start-up Poppi. This not only caught Pepsi up to Coke in the pre-biotic sweepatakes, but rocket it past, by inheriting the good consumer vibes already earned by Poppi in its solo run.
But do pre-biotics really work?
In other words… Does the relatively slim proof that exists supporting the effectiveness of pre-biotics justify the ‘gold rush-like’ haste with which the soda companies have jumped into the sector?
All the major medical, clinical and scientific authorities currently evaluating pre-biotics agree that the substances have tremendous potential for improving our health by supporting our metabolisms.
The overall effect is to bolster our bodies’ eternal fight against systemic inflammation and chronic immune system deficiencies. This, in turn, helps our systems fight cardiovascular disease, some cancers and such chronic conditions as Irritable Bowl Syndrome, Type-2 Diabetes and even obesity.
My take
At the root of the controversies behind pre-biotics is the mechanism by which they work. The idea is that pre-biotics influence the human body by promoting the development and proliferation of first-line beneficial compounds called pro-biotics, which actually produce the aforementioned benefits.
Questions remain about how strongly pre-biotics influence the production of pro-biotics in our systems. And how efficiently they’re absorbed from a a ‘carrier’ food such as soda. Pioneer pre-biotics advocates and other supporters insist that the best way to get them is through fresh-source foods such as fruits and veggies. Or secondarily, through pills and powders already available on the supplements market.
Panic set in…
The whole pre-biotic recreational-drink drama pivots on the panicked belief by soda makers that they’d be shut out of the race – like horse track bettors with what could be with the tip of their lives, if the parimutuel window closed before they could place their bets.
We’ll definitely be interested in following this ‘trend’ as it develops. At the rate the ‘race’ is proceeding, it might not take long to play out!
~ Maggie J.