Coffee and Red Bull could be in for some competition.
A veteran beverage executive said he is within a few weeks of bringing to market what he considers the most potent natural drink yet for energy, mental acuity, alertness and memory.
Rogerio S. Freitas, president of Natura Beverages Inc. of Port Chester, said his new VIVE drink will be the first of any mental performance beverage to combine three key amino acids, along with B-vitamins and other nutrients, shown to possibly help boost brain and nervous system performance over an extended period of time.
“It will be a great nutritional drink,” he said. “It will make people feel good.”
Freitas believes his carbonated VIVE drink with tangerine flavor in 8.4-ounce cans will be a hit among consumers in “knowledge occupations” requiring added attention and focus through the day. The beverage might also appeal to anyone seeking a fast, extended energy boost like students, athletes and truck drivers.
Natura Beverages plans to launch distribution of VIVE in about a month to health-oriented independent stores and national chains in New York City. It will also be offered on a website about to go online. The contracted manufacturer, NVE Pharmaceuticals of Dover, N.J., and a local distributor Freitas declined to name are ready to go, he said.
“We”™re looking at 250,000 cases sold the first year,” he said. “Within five years, we want to sell 3 million cases per year totaling each year about $75 million in sales.”
Freitas also wants to make a big splash with VIVE in the Brazilian market, where he grew up before moving to the Westchester County area as a young man about 25 years ago. He expects soon to finalize partnerships in Brazil that will allow him to market another 2 million cases in Brazil on top of the U.S. business. “I want to have a successful brand in Brazil before the World Cup in 2014.”
At present, Freitas intends to market VIVE within the metropolitan region via in-store promotions, ads in local media, radio, billboards and newspapers, and social media.
Freitas expected to quickly staff up the Port Chester office to 10 new hires in sales, office support and distribution.
However, two beverage industry analysts considered the category of mental performance beverages presently still too small and new to statistically predict the fate of any one brand, including VIVE.
John Sicher, publisher of Beverage Digest in Bedford Hills, said energy drinks adding natural ingredients with or without caffeine, such as Red Bull and SoBe Energy, had demonstrated “staying power” with consumers in North America. But drinks also claiming to help mental acuity like VIVE still represent “a relatively small niche. It”™s too early to know if (VIVE) will be successful.”
Yet the success of the energy drinks shows consumers “are looking for some of the beverages they consume to provide functional benefits,” said Sicher.
Jeffrey Klineman, editor of Beverage Spectrum Magazine, in Watertown Mass., said a fair number of companies have in recent years started to play in the brain-enhancement space as a subset category of energy drinks. Sales in the space have been too small to measure, he said.
Klineman listed as examples of existing products in the category as NERD, Braintoniq and Nawgan with all so far seeing limited distribution.
Neither analyst would comment specifically on the claimed efficaciousness of VIVE versus the others in the mental performance space.
Freitas, with 20 years of management experience in the beverage industry, has worked to market Minalba Waters, Thorspring Iceland of America, and his former own company ThinkSmart. But with VIVE Freitas believes he has hit the bull”™s-eye.
One of VIVE”™s main financial backers, Vernon C. Sumnicht, a wealth management company principal, sees potential in VIVE beyond a niche mental performance drink. It could also, he said, assist people with challenges to the central nervous system such as he faces. He was in a car accident 34 years ago at age 19 that left him paralyzed from the chest down, with only minimal use of his arms and shoulders. He finished college, obtained an MBA and launched Sumnicht and Associates based in Appleton, Wis., which has grown to 10 employees with $275 million in assets under management.
Sumnicht said he has used other mind enhancement drinks in liquid or powder form on the market. The problem, he said, has been the various formulas have demonstrated significant limitations in their effectiveness for him that could also inhibit their potential usefulness for others seeking nervous system improvement.
Sumnicht, who admitted he himself is not a medical professional or nutritionist, said he decided to invest in VIVE upon sampling the beverage, as the first to combine all three of the amino acids (acetylcholine, phenylalanine and tyrosine) into a single formula. The others had generally one or two of them, he said.
VIVE also exclusively adds in a combination of vitamins C, E, B-complex, including lots of B-12, with most meeting or exceeding the RDA, minerals, green tea extracts and a small amount of caffeine, according to Freitas and Sumnicht.
All the ingredients have been approved for safety alone and in combination by the FDA, so VIVE does not require FDA approval. At about 85 calories per can, VIVE also contains about 20 grams of sugar in the form of natural fructose.
Said Freitas, “Our goal is to persuade employers to make VIVE available as they do coffee and encourage workers to take a VIVE break along with a coffee break.”
