Exclusive Interview
From Firefighting to Functional Beverage: The Vitclear Story
FNBX sat down with the founder to discuss the technical challenges of creating a "clean label" soda that masks complex active ingredients, the task of educating the mass market on "nootropics," and why the brand is prioritising sleep and recovery over the traditional energy spike.
Ralph Burrows
Vitclear Founder
I created Vitclear whilst serving as a firefighter in Oxfordshire. I realised that you're not exactly replacing all the vitamins and minerals you lose when you sweat if you just drink water. I also wanted to make supplementation easier for people on-the-go, without being a drink packed with caffeine, as shift workers and athletes need to prioritise sleep. This resulted in many meetings with scientists, superfood experts and formulators, to create 3 drinks. Our Brain Health soda for productivity, our Gut Health soda to stay balanced, and our Active Health soda for recovery.
Our customers would typically know of (and already be consuming) the active ingredients in our drinks - we've just made it easier, tastier, and more affordable. For those who don't know already, I'd normally say 'Put simply, a Nootropic is any ingredient that may help brain performance', but you're right in saying that there is a lot more science to it than that.
The UK is very strict with what you can and can't say in terms of benefits, but coffee is actually a nootropic, of which most people consume it every day, and that helps people to understand that nootropics aren't this taboo 'smart drug' or anything like that. They can be simple functional ingredients like coffee beans or green tea. The term nootropic is more commonly known in the US, but we're seeing it appear more and more in the UK, and hopefully, we'll be the first brand that comes to mind.At Vitclear, we have a very difficult job trying to make complex products look really simple. We have over 20 beneficial ingredients in each can, with no artificial preservatives, additives, colours, flavours, or sweeteners, so everything from the can's design to the website design needs to look really clean and functional, without overloading the consumer with information. In terms of masking the more potent ingredients, it just takes a lot of patience on the R&D side. Our first Active Health flavour (Guava and Passionfruit) took months going back and forth to refine the taste, whereas our Tropical Peach Brain Health flavour that's on the shelves today is the first sample I tried!
The plan is to expand our flavour range to cater to those who don't want the sweetness of our existing offerings. Our drinks were originally designed with a younger palate in mind, but the majority of our customers are older, and we're going to respond to that demand. I don't think that there will be a revolutionary new ingredient discovery associated with Brain, Gut, or Active Health in the next few years, and we would want certainty of its efficacy with studies which take a long time to come to fruition anyway. We already have one of the highest-dosed functional drinks on the market, and it's backed by real results, so we don't really need to add any new ingredients or react to trends.
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