Nearly a year after Bulletproof’s FATwater line was recalled from the market, the enhanced waters are back with a new formulation and package.
Bulletproof, best known for its energy-boosting blend of coffee, grass-fed butter and oil, introduced FATwater, its first line of ready-to-drink products, in July, 2015. The beverages were formulated with purified water, Bulletproof’s XCT Oil, an ingredient sourced from coconuts and palm, and B vitamins and sweetened with stevia. The company promoted the low-calorie drinks as “a new kind of powerful hydration using clean-burning energy from quality fat.”
FATwater was sold on Bulletproof’s website and cafes as well as in a handful of retailers for less than five months before the company voluntarily initiated a recall on December 10, 2015. A day earlier Bulletproof had discovered “unexpected microbial contaminants in certain FATwater lots” and made the decision to pull the line off the market.
Following the recall, Bulletproof went back to the drawing board with FATwater, according to Karen Huh, the company’s vice president of product management and strategy.
“Rather than just looking at the issues that we had at the core and just trying to solve those… it was a great excuse to look at the bottle, the packaging, in addition to how we were formulating the product,” she said. “We basically did everything again from the ground up and looked at a brand new formulation and manufacturing process to bring it back to market.”
Bulletproof updated the formulation by swapping the XCT oil for its “Brain Octane” oil, which is derived solely from coconuts. Huh said that the change brings out “the best part of the coconut to provide that fat component that’s energy driven.” The company also updated the processing method for FATwater “so the product would be safe to the consumer.” Huh did not elaborate on the change in processing.
FATwater also comes with a new bottle and label. Now packaged in 16 oz. slim grip bottles, the products feature colorful shrink wrap labels that more clearly articulate the products’ connection to Bulletproof and its Brain Octane oil.
“Previous packaging was very FATwater-centric,” Huh said. “We want to make the consumer understand that this is part of the Bulletproof family. We [also] wanted to design a package that consumers can identify quickly, that looked unique and would perform well in the natural channel.”
Bulletproof introduced the new look FATwater at Natural Products Expo East 2016 and the products were made available for sale in November on the company’s website. Bulletproof is primarily targeting the natural channel for retail deployment of the line (outside of its cafes) in early-2017 and the company is in “active discussions for launch in Q1 of next year.”
Bulletproof is eying a number of “surround sound tactics to help the consumer break through both the fat component and the cognitive benefit component” of FATwater and using a combination of social media and its popular blog as way to bring greater awareness and education to the benefits of fat and its products.
“For those in the know, it’s easy to understand the product,” Huh said. “It takes a bit of knowledge to get there. I think we’re already starting to see in the marketplace movement toward the usage of MCT oil. And along with that movement as well as active marketing to help the average consumer understand what we’re all about will help drive a broader consumer set.”
Meanwhile, Bulletproof is evaluating opportunities to launch an RTD coffee product in 2017. Yet despite a growing number of Bulletproof-style bottled coffees coming to market, the company believes that, at this point in the brand’s evolution, FATwater can reach a broader range of consumers and more need states than a coffee product, Huh said.