These wellness drinks have become one of the fastest-growing trends.
When beginning research for this article, I thought: what on Earth is a functional soda? A soda with a job? Well, yes, in a way. A functional soda is a sparkling, low-calorie, and low-sugar beverage made with ingredients that are marketed as offering benefits beyond simple refreshment. A crispy Diet Coke (AKA the fridge cigarette) it is not.
Traditional soda is typically associated with high sugar content and little nutritional value, so functional sodas position themselves as a healthier alternative. What’s in them differs depending on which one you pick up, and there are tons to choose from. Cadence Core Hydration is an electrolyte soda and comes in cola, cream soda, and citrus. Neutonic is a ‘productivity’ drink containing caffeine and B vitamins. Jaga includes reishi, cordyceps, ashwagandha, and magnesium. And then there are the countless kombuchas on the market, from the glass-bottled Health-Ade to Buci, a hard kombucha with a 5 percent alcohol content.
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The plentiful options are proof of the category’s rising popularity. Whether driven by people looking for a decent non-alcoholic alternative or by a growing interest in wellness, functional beverages grew by 54 percent in the US between March 2020 and March 2024, according to Nielsen. The sector reached $9.2 billion and is expected to increase by around 7 percent annually through to 2027. Functional beverages now account for roughly 10 percent of the total US non-alcoholic beverage market.
But whether they live up to the marketing hype is less straightforward. Some ingredients, such as electrolytes, have well-documented uses in specific contexts like hydration (especially after intense exercise), while evidence for others — including a number of adaptogens — is still up for debate. In many cases, the benefits depend on the dose, the individual, and the wider diet rather than just the drink alone.
Camilla Pigozzi Garofalo, founder of Kurami and an expert on the anthropology of food, is a fan of functional sodas, but notes that it’s important to keep expectations around nutrition realistic. “Brands like Poppi and Olipop have helped make conversations around gut health much more mainstream, which is a positive thing. Some products genuinely contribute meaningful amounts of prebiotic fibre, while others contain much less, so they are not all the same.”
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For Garofalo, it’s less about chasing health claims and more about the ritual that drinking functional sodas can create, much like a morning coffee while reading a newspaper. She grew up in Italy and recalls the aperitivo — that transition from work to evening spent sharing a drink with friends. “It’s about conviviality, and enjoying the weather, the sun, and l’estate italiana. Functional sodas have become a nice alternative that allows people to enjoy that same social moment without always choosing alcohol. I think that is one of the reasons why they have become so popular. They are not just functional drinks, but rather, they are functional rituals.”
It could well be a placebo, but I’ve grown fond of a certain magnesium drink by Trip that is thought to help with sleep. Magnesium does have its benefits — it calms the central nervous system and relaxes muscles; it activates receptors for GABA, a neurotransmitter that slows brain activity; and helps regulate melatonin, the hormone that controls your sleep-wake cycle. Maybe it’s the magnesium or maybe it’s the power of persuasion, but by sipping one of these drinks in the evening – a ritual in itself – I’ve found it easier to nod off.
Perhaps that’s the real appeal of functional sodas and why they’ve risen in popularity. Whether the ingredients deliver exactly what’s promised may vary from drink to drink, but they’ve created a new routine: an evening wind-down or an aperitivo without the alcohol. And judging by the category’s speedy growth, it doesn’t appear to be going flat anytime soon.
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