In 2017, Positive Beverage launched as a zero-sugar, dairy-free drink packed with calcium, vitamin D and other immunity supporting vitamins. As the brand gained a following in the Southern California region, it started to look for ways to innovate from the original Immunity Boost line.
The impetus for Positive Beverage’s move into the energy drink category came to CEO Shannon Argyros while supporting her son at his go-kart and off-road truck races.
Everybody at the track from the kids to the parents to the mechanics loved the brand’s original Immunity Boost products, but the feedback was consistent. They kept asking ‘when can you add some caffeine to it?’, she recalled.
The Newport Beach, California-based beverage company spent the pandemic developing its answer to the zero-sugar energy drink category with the release of Positive Energy in three flavors – Tropical Bliss, Watermelon Mania and Poppin’ Orange. The products launched at the beginning of the year with 160g of caffeine from green tea extract and 0 calories in each can, and is positioning itself to target not just traditional energy drink consumers but the whole family.
“If you allow your young adult child to drink organic green tea, then you are drinking the same thing as Positive Energy,” Argyros said. “It’s safe to consume without fear of [your] heart-racing and staring up at the ceiling at 3 a.m. twiddling your thumbs.”
The new product line is gaining momentum even faster than the brand’s original Immunity Boost products, company leadership said. The 12-ounce Positive Energy cans retail for $2.49 while the Positive Energy Immunity Boost retail for $1.99.
“When all these energy beverages come out in the market, the one thing they don’t realize is that 99.9% of people are not bodybuilders,” COO and founder Zach Muchnick said. “They don’t need carnitine. They don’t need taurine. They don’t need these amino acids. Let your body operate as it’s intended to operate. Stop putting chemicals and other ingredients in your body that it doesn’t need or actually want.”
The brand quietly gained a foothold in the SoCal market, thanks in part to its partnership with Real Housewife of Orange County Kelly Dodd (Positive Beverage and Dodd amicably ended their partnership last year), and has since moved into national distribution in over 900 QuikTrip c-store locations.
It is positioning itself in the natural/specialty and traditional grocery channels while exploring the drug and c-store channels further in the future, executive vice president of sales James Harris said. “The strategy is to make sure we saturate markets before we continue to open up new markets.”
Along with the QuikTrip locations, Positive Beverage has some DSD with AB InBev and Molson/Coors as well as distribution in Gelson’s and Bristol Farms in the west.
The company maintains that its new energy line must adhere to the same ideals that the original Immunity Boost products were built on.
IP that the company has fought to maintain. It successfully won an intellectual property infringement lawsuit in 2020 against a brand named Positive Energy Beverages. Later, it went on to challenge ZOA Energy’s use of “positive energy” on its labeling and “within 72 hours everything was removed,” Muchnick said.
Up until now, Positive Beverage has been self-funded by Muchnick and Argyros but the company has recently opened up a $5 million Series A funding round.
Muchnick clarified that the investment will not be a rebrand but to grow the current business and support inventory management. Positive Beverage already made changes to its branding before the pandemic by shifting from 16-ounce PET bottles to 12-ounce narrow aluminum cans.
“They always say you have five seconds to sell your product and that’s a lie. You have one to two seconds,” Muchnick said. “Even our messaging has been simplified 10 times over. Literally the bottom of our new can says ‘immunity boost.’ We are selling finality.”