Lifeway Kefir

Product Type:Dairy: Dairy Alternative; Container: 32 oz PET
BevNET Review: Lifeway’s Gingerbread flavored Kefir is labeled as their “Holiday Edition” product. This makes sense, since gingerbread, much like eggnog, is a flavor that is most popular around the winter holidays. In the case of this particular product, it doesn’t smack you in the face with gingerbread flavoring, leaving the tangy taste of the kefir as the primary flavor. The gingerbread, along with the added sugar, provides the secondary flavors, which definitely helps keep your palate from being overwhelmed with the cultured flavor of the drink. From our perspective, the flavor is good, but it’s hard to imagine consuming multiple bottles of this product. Nutritionally, the product contains ten live and active kefir cultures, which provide probiotic content. And since it’s milk based, the product is also high in protein, cholesterol, vitamin A, vitamin C, and calcium (they’ve also added vitamin D, much like every other dairy product). From a visual perspective, the product’s label, which has a gingerbread man and snowflakes, definitely feels like something that is being marketed as a holiday product. Otherwise, we can’t help but feel as though this product is too busy looking. There are numerous text callouts competing for attention (each of which uses a different font and color combination) and the items that appeal to your senses (the gingerbread man) feel buried. Addressing these issues seem like it would help. Overall, a good seasonal effort from Lifeway.Reviewed on: 8/10/2012

Product Type:Dairy: Dairy Alternative; Container: 32 oz PET
BevNET Review: Lifeway’s Coconut-Chia Kefir is a coconut flavored and chia powder enhanced kefir (fermented milk drink that’s essentially a yogurt alternative). In terms of flavor, this product has a very mainstream flavor -- assuming you don’t dislike coconut. It’s sweet, thanks to added cane juice, and viscous, with the added coconut flavoring making this product taste almost like coconut cream. The chia powder doesn’t have any noticeable impact on the product’s flavor (it presumably adds omega 3 and 6, protein, and antioxidants). All in all, this product’s flavor is potent, but very enjoyable regardless of if you are a kefir lover or not. Packaging is a 32 oz. HDPE bottle that must be kept refrigerated thanks to the live probiotics. Visually, this product is extremely busy in its design. There’s really no need (or excuse) for this -- there are way too many things competing for your eye. Furthermore, in the samples that we received, the labels were applied improperly (see the product photo), which makes the product look sloppy. Overall, this is a really well executed flavor, but what’s on the outside of the bottle isn’t up to the same standard.Reviewed on: 8/10/2012