- Contents
- *Overview
- What you need to know
- Covered in this report
- Figure 1: Definition of low/mid/high MHI groups, by city tier
What you need to know
Sports and energy drinks are the leading functional drink categories. They enjoy the highest consumption frequency and have the most product launches in the market. In the sports drink category, consumers have become more sophisticated and are trading up for ‘real’ sports drinks with electrolytes, stepping up from just vitamin water. An opportunity for energy drinks could be positioning lighter versions as mood enhancers or energising refreshment. In this way, atypical users who do not always need an intense energy boost could be more likely to try the category.
After sports and energy drinks, ready-to-drink (RTD) tea with functional ingredients is the next most popular functional drink category. It reaches more non-users of sports and energy drinks, such as consumers in their forties. Function-wise, ‘assisting digestion’, ‘removing inner heat’, and ‘throat cleaning’ are the most needed health benefits ranked just after ‘energy boosting’ and ‘body recovery after workout’.
Covered in this report
Functional drinks in this report include:
Sports drinks: RTD drinks that are designed to replace energy and minerals lost during exercise, common ingredients are electrolytes (hypotonic, isotonic, hypertonic), vitamins and protein.
Energy drinks: RTD and liquid concentrate drinks that are marketed with additives specifically designed to increase alertness. Common additives include but are not limited to caffeine, guarana, taurine, ginseng, and vitamin B.
Other RTD drinks that are enhanced with added ingredients to provide specific health benefits beyond general nutrition, such as aiding digestion, weight management, or beauty purposes.
RTD beverages that have been modified and enhanced through processing, e.g. fermentation.
Mintel divides consumers into three groups based on their monthly household income (MHI). The table below shows the definitions of Low MHI, Mid MHI and High MHI consumer groups.
Mintel also divides consumers into three groups based on their consumption frequency of functional drinks. The table below shows the definitions of heavy-, medium-, light-, and non-users of functional drinks.
Heavy users: consume several times a week or more
Medium users: consume once a week
Light users: consume ‘2-3 times a month’ and ‘once a month or less’
Non-users: have not drunk this type of drink in the last six months
