Getting higher? This drink will help.
Developed by former Wild Flavors executive Bob Bloom and a group of experienced ingredient and flavor specialists, MTN Ready, which launched in stores and online last month, aims to bring a narrowly specific function to a mass audience with its powder drink mix: treating the nausea, headache, listlessness and other effects of high altitudes.
The project came together during a conversation between Bloom, who retired following Wild Flavors’ acquisition by ADM in 2020, and two fellow ingredient experts — Dr. Mary Mulry, Ph.D, of Foodwise and Applied Food Sciences’ Loretta Zapp — over post-trade show cocktails. One of the suppliers mentioned they had an expiring patent for a solution for the negative effects of altitude. Recently, Colorado-based CPG operator John Maggio (Cocktail Squad) joined the project as CEO of parent company Peak Brands.
MTN Ready’s formula contains just three GRAS ingredients — D-ribose, potassium glucarate and dextrose — and doesn’t rely on any specific patent, IP or trade secret; to avoid scrutiny by the FDA over function claims, there’s no specific mention of “altitude sickness” anywhere within the product’s messaging . Potassium glucarate has been deployed as an active ingredient in hangover treatment products, so its inclusion in MTN Ready made sense as the symptoms of altitude sickness — nausea, headache and stomach discomfort — are similar, Mulry noted.
Though initially conceived as a tablet ideal for skiers who don’t carry water with them on the slopes, MTN Ready’s positioning has evolved to promise science-backed effectiveness in the guise of a consumer product safe for anyone to use as a travel remedy. While other altitude drinks have hewed closer to the outdoor sports community, MTN Ready sees itself as a broadly accessible travel staple: the product comes in 5-count stick packs priced at $19.99 ($4.99 per stick); the brand recommends consumers take one to two packs one day prior to arriving at altitude.
“From the beginning, I wanted to develop a product that didn’t have botanicals in it that would require warnings on them,” Mulry said. “Along with the marketing person that we were working with at the time, we said, ‘okay, let’s make this product something that anyone could take, sort of like Airborne.’”
MTN Ready is looking to claim a niche within the functional drink space that has been left relatively untouched; its direct competitors include Colorado-based Acli-Mate, which markets single and multi-serve powder formats, and Oxyfix. Pressed for time? There’s products like Boost Oxygen for that. Some electrolyte drink mixes, like Liquid I.V. and DripDrop, mention elevation sickness in their marketing copy, while nevertheless being careful about making explicit callouts on their respective packaging.
Like Airborne, the idea is to integrate MTN Ready as part of a normal preparation routine for traveling to high elevations, just like packing a winter hat for cold weather. Business wise, that means eventually moving into outdoor retailers like REI.
“The research was critical because it was people that had a problem above 4,000 feet,” he said. “We also know that there’s a number of people who hear about it and don’t want to have a problem, and people who may have paid $20,000 to go to Vail for the week with their family and they don’t want people sitting in a coffee shop with a headache. So it’s a little bit of an insurance policy for some people as well.”
Peak has been funded by friends and family thus far, but the company is targeting more growth capital as it slowly introduced MTN Ready and gathers product feedback.
“I think the interesting part is we’ve created some focus around this, in that here’s something that solves a problem,” said Maggio. “It’s easy to be able to focus on a category and not say ‘oh, we are going to have hydration, too’ just to placate (people). This is a real funneled, hyper-focused effort.”