Formulating Functional Beverages: Balancing Performance and Consumer Expectations

As consumers become more educated and discerning about their products, functional beverages are moving beyond simple vitamin combinations to include more complex bioactives like NAD+ precursors and Coenzyme Q10.

Offering more insights on this shift, Isabel Mirfakhraie, technical marketing associate at Imbibe, discusses this evolving landscape, highlighting ways to overcome formulation hurdles and maintain ingredient efficacy while supporting the flavor standards consumers are seeking.

In particular, she addresses matrix selection, pH management, and handling ingredient interactions. She also explains how Imbibe utilizes taste modulation technology and mouthfeel enhancers to mask the off notes introduced by certain ingredients, plus the currently trending flavors.

Mirfakhraie also identifies trends and opportunities in the future of this market, including "functional stacking” of benefits in a single format, the rise of adaptogenic beverages in social drinking situations, and specialized nutrition for GLP-1 users. The overall goal is to create a product that balance regulatory compliance, clinical efficacy, and premium flavor.

A transcript of this conversation can be found below.

Erin McEvoy: Hello everyone. I'm here with Isabel, Technical Marketing Associate at Imbibe, to discuss recent trends and innovations in functional beverages. Thank you for joining us today, Isabel.

Isabel Mirfakhraie: Of course. Thank you for having me, Erin. I'm excited to speak a little bit more about what's going on in the nutritional beverage space. And, yeah, talk a little bit more about what's trending and functional beverages specifically.

McEvoy: So, jumping right in, nutritional brands are increasingly moving beyond basic vitamin combinations toward more complex bioactives like cellular health ingredients. What are the primary formulation hurdles when trying to maintain the efficacy of these compounds and how is Imbibe overcoming them?

Mirfakhraie: Yeah, it's a really good question. I feel like one that is really important right now. A lot of consumers are really interested not just in what exactly is on their pack, what ingredients are in their pack, but also do they actually work?

And, you know, as consumers become more educated, regarding, you know, functional ingredients and their actual benefits, it's brands' jobs to really communicate those, those benefits and also our jobs as developers to make sure that they are efficacious. So to address this, you know, Imbibe really considers the full beverage system as a holistic system. So we're really formulating our beverages around the active functional ingredient. So that means, you know, choosing the right format or matrix, so that might be thinking about, whether our functional ingredient's being dissolved in, you know, an emulsion or is it a dispersion, to understanding when it's appropriate to use different formats.

Also managing pH is a huge one. I mean, a lot of these active, highly functional ingredients are really pH dependent and can, their efficacy can really switch and change depending on the pH of the system that they're in. So that's another key way that we maintain efficacy for a lot of these functional ingredients. Another is managing the interactions between specific functionals and actives.

So, you know, understanding exactly like what is, what is composing the entire system. Sometimes a lot of functional ingredients don't work well together. So thinking about, making sure to, to really understand how those interactions occur. So that efficacy is, you know, at, for at the forefront.

The other thing, you know, when we think about formulating these highly functional beverages is what does it taste like? I mean, that's really our key focus, is, is thinking about taste and formulating a beverage that hits the marks for our consumers and our customers, but also actually tastes good and something that customers and consumers will want to continue to repeat buy, repeat consume. So as for mitigating some of the off notes from some of these ingredients, I mean, you mentioned cellular health ingredients. This is kind of a newer space, but a lot of these ingredients, some that come to mind are NAD+ precursors, or coenzyme Q10 is another one that's become really popular and trendy. You know, these are really interesting kind of emerging functional ingredients, but they do come with their own associated off notes. So they tend to be a little bit chemically a little bit "vitaminy," sour even. And, and usually they have some sort of like bitter linger. And so within that space specifically, even we're seeing functional off notes.

So that's really when we start having to think about, you know, utilizing taste modulation technology and taste modulation tools, which is something that Imbibe is, you know, that is at the forefront of what we do. And we do that along with kind of crafting these complimentary flavor systems that work really in a synergistic way with these functional ingredients so that we can create a product that is efficacious but also taste delicious, really.

McEvoy: That's a lot to consider there for sure. And that kind of goes into my next question. We're kind of seeing trends of, you know, consumers wanting, they're interested in nostalgia flavors. They like clean label and low calorie status of the functional drinks. So how is Imbibe creating a premium mouthfeel and, you know, overall satisfaction without compromising any of these elements?

Mirfakhraie: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, taste modulation is really key here. So, we have created taste modulation tools that are designed for the purpose of doing just that, which is reintroducing that premium taste to highly nutritious, highly functional products that might not have that on their own.

This is especially relevant in a lot of reduced sugar applications, where, you know, when you start taking out sugar from your products, particularly your beverage, which is what we primarily work on, you start to lose a lot of the really great, I mean, sugar tastes delicious. So you're losing a lot of the sweetness, obviously, but you also lose a lot of the full mouthfeel that sugar provides. And consumers expect a sugar-like sweetness in their products. Sugar is really the gold standard. So here is when we really start thinking about how do we use some alternative sweeteners? How do we make them taste like sugar? So that's where we get, that's where we really utilize our taste modulation portfolio and use things like modulators and, also mouthfeel enhancers. And those two used in tandem can really help bring back some of that premium and indulgent, you know, flavor and taste expectations that consumers have, you know.

You mentioned nostalgic flavors. That's another way to really help introduce some of those premium, flavors and expectations from consumers in a functional format. And actually, they tend to work really synergistically with a lot of functional ingredients. For example, indulgent flavors are really popular right now, and some nostalgic, indulgent flavors that we really see trending are like orange cream, root beer float, fruity pebbles, even like milk, cereal milk kind of flavors. And those tend to work really well, actually in very highly functional products, because the creaminess actually tends to help mask a little bit. And then the brightness from the fruit notes or the, you know, accompanied flavor tend to really help drive a lot of the brightness and the impact in the front of kind of that flavor experience. So I see it really popular right now in better for you sodas, but also in high protein content, nutrition shakes. So it allows consumers to really have those little treat moments without sacrificing, you know, the functional benefits that they seek.

McEvoy: That's definitely really interesting. So you talked a little bit about this earlier, but how are some of the, you know, drawbacks of these functional claims, like the unintended off notes and the undesirable flavors or the instability being addressed to ensure the full product performance?

Mirfakhraie: Yeah, it kind of harkens back a little bit to the first question. So formulation is really being engineered as a system. We do not treat individual ingredients in isolation. We really consider how they interact together and how they interact with the system as a whole. So that's one way to ensure product performance, is really thinking about your system in this kind of holistic way. Another is, again, really mitigating your off notes and actively managing them using taste modulation and flavor design.

So, you know, one way that we really approached this, on bench here at Imbibe is when we get a base, we really, first of all consider what does that base actually taste like when it doesn't have any of the good things like the sweeteners or the flavor? What does the base, you know, the pure base tastes like by itself? So there, we really are characterizing that base and understanding exactly what off notes are introduced. And that helps us understand, okay, now how do we go in with maskers and taste modulation tools to actually address those specific off notes.

So unfortunately, as a developer, it often involves having to taste a lot of bad tasting things before you get to the good part. But that's that's how it goes. That's what we signed up for. And it is kind of the fun part.

It's kind of like a puzzle trying to trying to fit these taste mod tools, plus your characterizing flavor system, plus your sweetening system, and fitting them all together so that they're well balanced and working in a synergistic way while making sure your product is still like hitting those functional targets, but also still hitting those regulatory considerations as well. Everything has to happen and work together in synergy. So that's one of the difficulties of, of formulating functional beverages and functional products. But it is one of the most rewarding challenges because when you get to that finished product at the end, that does taste balance does have your characterizing flavors shine through and you're not getting any off notes from your functional ingredients. That's when you know, you know you've done a good job. And it's a product that a consumer, you know, will hopefully like, you know, another, another kind of like keynote is we do, you know, we do kind of test our performance of these beverages through stress testing them in real conditions.

So this is really thinking about like matching your active to the right format. So you might need to think about, you know, what micronization level of your protein is key in a, in a clear protein product. So really thinking about like the nitty gritty, granular, ingredient and, and understanding that what the format that it exists in and how it best fits again, the holistic system and the like expectation, consumer expectation, not just for flavor, but also like the visual,I'm trying to think of a better way to say that, but like,like consumer expectation for, for, for taste and, visual appearance, is something that, you know, we have to consider when we formulate, these highly functional, potentially instability, unstable products.

McEvoy: Definitely. That's a lot of things to consider. You mentioned adhering to regulatory standards, is that, has that become more of a challenge or less of a challenge or a constant challenge throughout the whole process?

Mirfakhraie: Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think it's a constant challenge, from the taste modulation perspective. I mean, we work really closely with our customers to figure out exactly what, you know, functional ingredients they're using. And we have a really lovely and wonderful and smart regulatory team that helps deal with a lot of those.

But from a taste modulation perspective, as someone who, you know, was a taste modulation scientist, a lot of those regulations have, you know, they've evolved over time, but they've always been there. So they're kind of building upon each other. So we're really intimately familiar with, you know, the FDA's regulations and stances on natural sweeteners and especially using modulators. So it's something that has consistently been something that we have to think about and maintaining compliance for, but it's definitely not getting more difficult as we introduce more functional ingredients. It's more just thinking about how, how are we using these modulators in tandem with these functional ingredients and just ensuring essentially that we're maintaining compliance.

But it is definitely something that's very important to us at Imbibe and something that I think is important to most people in the industry, of course. But yeah, it can be an extra, just an extra consideration when you're, when you're thinking about formulating these like super highly functional products that you want ultimately to taste good. Yeah, definitely important there.

McEvoy: And then, so with all these things taken into consideration, where do you anticipate the future needs and trends of consumers and functional beverages? Like where, where are we headed?

Mirfakhraie: Totally. Yeah. I mean, I love this is like a fun question, obviously. And I think one major thing that I'm seeing show up not just in, in beverage format, but in a lot of different food and beverage products is functional stacking or functional layering. It's really becoming almost the default expectation and like basically every category. So you probably have heard a lot of sentiment around like fiber is the new protein.

But what we're really seeing and what we're really seeing, what the consumer demand is there for protein and fiber products. You know, consumers want to get as many functional benefits as possible within one format. So it's really right sizing actually like those macro ingredients and those functional ingredients to get, to get, you know, a more holistic nutrition, nutrition dense product. And we see that show up a lot in beverages with, you know, a hydration plus hydration, plus focus, hydration plus beauty even.

Or even especially with energy, energy plus focus is huge. Those are two kind of benefits that really go hand in hand together. And, you know, especially with, I also think another category that's interesting to, to see this layering functional layering happening in is better for you soda. I think kind of better for you soda launched on the market as a lot of prebiotic fiber.

And we're now really starting to see that new brands and new line extensions are trying to differentiate by adding other kinds of functional benefits that might additionally benefit gut health, but also might go beyond. So we're seeing, you know, added B vitamins to better for you sodas, things called postbiotics, which, you know, are meant to help, you know, enhance the gut brain axis and, and even actually help mood beyond just gut health. So there's a lot, I think happening in this space right now. And, and it's really exciting to see, how creative a lot of these brands are getting and in terms of kind of pairing these functional ingredients and these functional claims in ways that consumers are really demanding.

Another kind of, I think up and coming trend in functional beverages is that there's these kind of these new need states that are expanding kind of when and how people are using functional beverages. I think one key area is we definitely see, you know, Gen Z actually drinks less coffee than, their like boomer or Gen X equivalents. So, what we see there then happening is a lot of Gen Z consumers are actually looking to drink more hydration type products because they recognize that hydration actually is a form of, of kind of energizing in a way. And then also there's the obvious energy drink category where like, they're, they're trying to get their stimulant from, you know, more maybe fruit forward profiles, and less traditional kind of coffee profiles.

So there's a lot of, I think expansion in that kind of use case and that need state. And we see it also a lot in like social drinking situations where a lot of consumers are no longer looking to alcohol for their mood altering type beverage, but they're also looking to adaptogenic beverages or, yeah, beverages that feature ingredients like ashwagandha or mushrooms that are, you know, also helping to kind of alter that mood state a little bit. So we're seeing a little bit of a shift there.

I think another key area and it would be kind of, you know, silly to, not to mention is the GLP -1 consumer and, kind of a lot of the trends that are emerging in that space. So, you know, GLP-1 users, they're really, you know, their flavor perceptions and their flavor needs are actually really shifting. And they're looking for smaller portion products that are still really nutritionally dense, but also gentle on the digestive system. Since we know a lot of these drugs tend to, cause some like digestive distress. So now a lot of, you know, a lot of the, I think functional beverages in general are it's important to consider, you know, how do we formulate for that group and not just the GLP-1 consumer, but anyone in their kind of ecosystem, their friends, their family, people that, you know, will probably be consuming a lot of the same products if they are, you know, within the same household or in the same kind of social circle.

So thinking about how do we, how do we formulate these functional beverages to have those attributes, but again, still taste indulgent and still taste delicious at the end of the day. And I think that's another space that we're starting to see, really go off and even products that are claiming, you know, GLP-1 friendly use on pack. And it's interesting to see the way that different brands approach that, but I think that we're only, we're only at the beginning and like the emerging, you know, part of that discussion in that, yeah, market and I'm excited to see where that goes.