A magic potion?

Coca-Cola prepares to launch a “wellness” drink

NATURAL and functional are the latest buzzwords in the food and soft-drinks industries. Enviga, a new health drink made by Coca-Cola, the world's biggest maker of fizzy soft drinks, and Nestlé, the largest food firm, is supposed to be both. A concoction of “natural” green-tea extracts, caffeine and “plant micronutrients”, it will go on sale across America next month. Its makers claim it can help consumers to lose weight.

“Enviga increases calorie burning,” declared Rhona Applebaum, Coca-Cola's chief scientist, when the new drink was unveiled in late 2006. Coke claims studies have shown that a healthy person of normal weight can burn 60 to 100 calories by consuming three cans of Enviga over 24 hours. The studies have not been made public.

Health and wellness are the main sources of growth in the soft-drinks industry. In 2005 global sales of healthy drinks, which include bottled water, fruit juice, and sports and energy drinks, amounted to $138 billion, or 45% of the soft-drinks market. Growth rates are seven times higher than for carbonated sugary drinks. In America sales of carbonated drinks declined a little in 2005 as government campaigns and media coverage raised concerns over obesity.

Will consumers take to Enviga? Only one out of every three new soft drinks is a success, says Robert van Brugge, a drinks analyst at Sanford Bernstein. Recent high-profile flops include Vanilla Coke and Coca-Cola C2. Mr van Brugge says he does not much like the taste of Enviga, which comes in green tea, berry and peach flavours. And the suggested retail price of $1.29-1.49 is relatively high.

Enviga's fate will probably turn on Coke's claim that it helps to burn calories. The Centre for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer lobby group, threatened to sue Nestlé and Coke over the weight-loss claims for the new drink unless they changed their marketing strategy by January 4th. Yet even if the claims made for Enviga are accurate, drinking it would be a pretty inefficient way to lose weight. To shed the 560 calories in a Big Mac, you would have to swallow about 20 cans of the stuff. Going for a long run would seem to be a lesser—not to mention more economical—punishment for gluttony.