Where all those weird new drinks are coming from
Planet Money
The episode explores the dramatic explosion of new beverages and exotic flavors on grocery store shelves, tracing the phenomenon to advances in flavor science, the rise of functional
Key takeaways
- Tom Gibson, chief flavorist at Flavorman, explains that modern aroma chemistry allows scientists to isolate hundreds of compounds, using unexpected notes like stinky cheese to add depth to berry flavors
- Kristen Gwemmer, Flavorman's CTO, details the boom in functional beverages, noting ingredients like gum acacia (prebiotics) and coconut water are added to create drinks that supposedly aid sleep or gut health
Main topics
- Beverage industry evolution and market competition
- Flavor science and aroma chemistry breakthroughs
Notable quotes
"We could all just be drinking water. But the beverage industry has figured out that if they invent new kinds of drinks, they can invent new reasons for us to not drink water."
Conclusion
The episode demystifies the modern beverage aisle by showing how scientific innovation and
Transcript preview
Speaker 5 (0:00) This message comes from the TED podcast Fixable, for work advice that you can put into action instantly. Here, their expert hosts share practical tips to help you feel more empowered at work and build confidence that comes naturally. Find Fixable wherever you listen. Speaker 6 (0:16) This is Planet Money from NPR. Speaker 2 (0:21) When I was growing up in the 90s, there weren't that many choices about what to buy. Most of the time, your options were like two or three giant brands. This was the era of Nike versus Reebok, Nintendo versus Sega, Burger King versus McDonald's. Most of all, there was Coke versus Pepsi. This was the massive economic fault line dividing the beverage aisle, dividing the nation, frankly. You either drank Coke. or you drank Pepsi. Whitney Houston, she drank Coke. Speaker 2 (0:59) Michael Jackson, on the other hand, he was Team Pepsi. Speaker 6 (1:04) You're the best Speaker 2 (1:07) And I was thinking about the Cola Wars recently because the business of beverages just could not be more different now. We are way past the days of just Coke or Pepsi. The other day, I had my fellow Planet Money host, Kenny Malone, meet me at the supermarket. We are actually headed to my favorite part of the store. We were going on a thrilling safari through the beverage Speaker 1 (1:30) aisle. Listen, you can't see Jeff, but he is glowing. as we turn left into this aisle. Speaker 2 (1:36) This is so exciting. I've never, look, I've never seen this. I go to Speaker 1 (1:39) the Speaker 2 (1:39) store all the time. What is this? Sparkling tea with adaptogens. Amazing. I'm sorry, adaptogens? I Speaker 1 (1:45) have Speaker 2 (1:45) no idea what it is, but it's probably good for you. Sure. The sheer variety of beverage choices that are now competing for our attention, it's almost incomprehensible. You know what I'm talking about. the rainbow wall of flavored seltzers, the rows of canned latte drinks next to the cans of latte-flavored energy drinks with or without extra protein, all the new sodas that supposedly help you focus or help you sleep or maybe help you go to the bathroom. Speaker 1 (2:15) What do you call these sodas? Speaker 2 (2:17) The Speaker 1 (2:17) functional sodas. Right. Do you call them the poopies? Is that right? I Speaker 2 (2:20) think Speaker 1 (2:20) we're Speaker 2 (2:21) not Speaker 1 (2:21) allowed to say that, but yeah. There's a Spider-Man one. Really? Yeah. Spider-Man Poppy. Speaker 2 (2:25) Not to mention all the new flavors that companies are coming out with. There's the new Dubai Chocolate Pepsi, the Creamy Coconut Dr. Pepper, the Cosnopolitan-flavored Spindrift. The thing is, like, growing up, we didn't have any of this, right? Speaker 1 (2:41) I guess not. We only had our Sprites, our Ginger Ale. I guess you're right, now that you mention it. Why are there flavors everywhere all of a sudden? Yeah. Why is this happening? Why are there so many? Speaker 2 (2:52) Why does it feel like there's a new one? every single week. Because we buy them. Because you and I are buying them. Yes, but it all comes from somewhere. Oh, right, right. Do you know the answer? That's what I went out to find out. Speaker 1 (3:03) Are you going to tell me? I'll Speaker 2 (3:05) tell you. We've got to go on a journey first. Speaker 2 (3:11) Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Jeff Lowe. A few months ago, I started looking into why we are seeing so many new kinds of beverages and new beverage flavors. What I found is that the economics of the beverage industry have been turned inside out. So today on the show, we are going inside Big Beverage. We're headed to a top secret laboratory to unravel the mysteries of the soda aisle. We're going to see how new flavors get created, how... cutting edge bacteria or changing the game. And we ask the experts, what does planet money taste like? Speaker 4 (3:52) This week on the NPR Politics Podcast, a vibe check on election security. With barely a month left until the midterms, we're talking about vote by mail, the possibility of ICE at polling stations, and what the Trump administration is doing in the name of preventing fraud, which we know is not a widespread problem. plus the latest on how voters are feeling about all of that. Listen now on the NPR Politics Podcast. Speaker 6 (4:17) Before Bernie Sanders or AOC, a man named Michael Harrington tried to market socialism to the American public. Speaker 3 (4:24) Tens of millions of Americans were poor, miserable, in body and in spirit. Speaker 4 (4:30) On NPR's ThruLine, how the founder of the DSA created a modern political movement. Listen to ThruLine in the NPR app. or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Tanya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air. I spoke with Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil about the Columbia protests and his 2025 arrest. While in ICE detention, he missed the birth of his son and had to listen to his wife give birth over the phone. Speaker 7 (4:55) I can never forgive those who stripped that moment from me. Speaker 4 (5:01) Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get Fresh Air. Speaker 2 (5:05) To understand why everything is now coming up, acai, dragon fruit, sparkling protein probiotic, yada, yada, yada, I called up a bunch of beverage industry insiders. And one of them shared with me this kind of industry secret. You see, apparently, a lot of the drinks showing up on shelves these days can be traced back to this one company in Kentucky. They're called Flavorman. And behind the scenes, they're the ones who have been quietly helping all these other companies come up with the new types of beverages and new beverage flavors. Recently, they agreed to let me visit their labs in Louisville. Good Speaker 3 (5:44) morning. Hey, good to see you. It's good to see you. Welcome to Flavorman. The Speaker 2 (5:50) food scientists at Flavorman specialize in beverage development. Big brands like Coke and Pepsi usually have their own in-house food scientists. But basically everyone else outsources the work of designing a drink to companies like Flavorman. So most of the work here is super, super hush-hush. They are not allowed to talk about it. So sometimes we're the dark secret behind some of the very large national brands that you're aware of. That's Evan Floyd. He works on the business side here. And when we walked in, he asked us to sign a non-disclosure agreement. I think technically we're not allowed to sign this because we are going to disclose all the things. Is there a way that we can Speaker 7 (6:31) get past it? Speaker 2 (6:37) In the end, we did not sign that NDA, of course, but we did promise to be careful about which brands we talked about. Publicly, Flavorman is allowed to say they've done work for companies like Ocean Spray and Jones Soda. Privately, they have helped launch tens of thousands of new beverages. As we walk back to the labs, we saw this trophy wall full of examples going back 30 years. Some of them were pretty famous. Some of them were a little bit more niche. This is... So this is a juice box for cats. Yep. It's, you're just like, Speaker 8 (7:12) yeah, of course. It's salmon flavored. I think that that one specifically was designed for aging cats. Speaker 2 (7:19) Now, the real reason we were here, of course, is to understand why the market for beverages has changed so dramatically over the years. And we wanted to see firsthand how new drinks get designed and launched and how the industry has changed at every step of the process. So our first stop was the flavor lab. Who let you Speaker 8 (7:39) guys in my lab? What is going on here? Are we making flavors today? I hope so. All right, Speaker 2 (7:45) let's talk. Tom Gibson is the chief flavorist at Flavor Man. He is responsible for what a new beverage is going to taste like. The way it works is a client, usually a beverage company, comes in and maybe they want to launch a line of drinks and they have ideas for a couple new flavors. Here in this lab, Tom and his team of flavor scientists invent the recipe for those new flavors. He's like the Willy Wonka of sodas. Have you ever led a tour of little children through here and maybe disappeared some of them? Never. Speaker 8 (8:19) Never. Never Speaker 2 (8:20) happened. Now, Tom says when people talk about flavor, most of the time they are really talking about aroma. The smell that hits your nose when you bite into that nice, fresh strawberry. In nature, that strawberry smell is actually