Aquaceuticals, the new drinks concept

German flavour group WILD announced recently the launch of a new product group for the breakfast and lunch drink segment. With ACE drinks, in addition to the orange-carrot "standard variety", new drinks with fruit mixtures like apple-tangerine, pineapple-carrot and exotic blends have managed to establish themselves. Since an overall strong trend is reported in the red fruits area, the next step for WILD is to focus on red innovations for the ACE drinks. An extension of their range was presented at the FiE in London last week. Following the success of the ACE drinks, the use of new types of vitamin combinations for the beverage industry is a clear form of diversification. In response to the popularity of B vitamins, WILD has enhanced soft drinks with these vitamins, said to be beneficial to nerve tissue and cell formation. The first drinks with the protective vitamins F-ACE (Folic acid plus ACE) and the heart vitamins B6 and B12 are already available on the market. In a statement WILD comments that functional drinks in the past were particularly prone to taste problems. Adding the quantity of those ingredients recommended for nutritional and physiological benefits, resulted quite frequently in an undesired after taste in the finished product. But since the phrase "it's got to taste good" is absolutely valid for the success of a product, the product developers found that they were sometimes stuck between the pleasant taste and the health benefit. WILD's Resolver™ Technology apparently covers up the unpleasant after taste, without altering the effect of the ingredients. For drinks based on sweeteners, WILD has developed a technology called Sweet Up®, which overcomes the taste of the sweetener, so that the products taste like the sugar-sweetened versions. The labelling status of Resolver™ is that of a natural flavour extract. Some companies that market water, particularly on the U.S. and Asian markets, have recently begun to pick up on the trends to "still water" and "functional drinks" and have put combined products onto the market. WILD in the USA was involved in the development of this new segment and at the FiE launched products geared towards the European market. Aquaceuticals or Near Water is the buzz word for this new beverage concept.