My name is Perrin Gerber, Director of Product Development and Commercialization. I joined the food and beverage manufacturing industry, probably 2016. I have a bachelors in food science and technology. I went to Brigham Young University. My favorite part about Sensapure is that I get to be a professional taste tester. I tell people I eat for a living. As a kid, my mom would probably say yes, I had a refined palate. It has definitely grown over the years; I am much less picky now than I used to be. So my hobbies: I like to lift, I like to be active, I like to play football. I used to play in a tackle football league up until about a year ago. I love to be outside, especially during the summer.

This whole R&D beverage center, I led the project to get this built. Sourced some equipment that is now in our facility. Drew out all of the floor plans and where things would go. We wanted this space to be not just an R&D center; we wanted it to be an experience.

The functional beverage industry in the next five years will be geared towards experience. Think mind-altering substances like THC, hemp-infuzed beverages, CBD; you might even see some people starting to push the edge with other mind-altering substances. People are veering away from alcohol, which is a mind-altering substance, and they're going to be looking for a replacement. Caffeine: I think in the next five years, you will see people trying to reduce their caffeine consumption and looking for alternatives. I have family members who are asking me, what are some better alternatives to replace my caffeine consumption? Caffeine is kind of one of those substances that it helps a little bit for the short term, but it's not something that you can continually take habitually, because it will spike your cortisol and it's not good to have your cortisol spiked and elevated all the time.

We are definitely approaching a saturation point with caffeine and electrolytes. There are a lot of brands in this space that are all kind of doing about the same thing. You've got one big brand that started it, and you got a lot of other people who are like, oh, let me get on this train. I think you kind of see that in all markets, though, where you see one person create a completely brand new product. And then you see a bunch of other people follow. I think we're reaching the point where you have enough followers.

True nootropic innovation in the beverage format is going to look like ingredients that either blunt cortisol from caffeine or replace caffeine. Those are really the two ways to go about addressing nootropics in a functional beverage. If I were asked what a nootropic is, I would just say it's a substance that helps your brain. And there's a lot of different types of substances that can help your brain.

I think the big one that's here right now, you've got paraxanthine that could really transform the energy drink market. Paraxanthine is a unique ingredient. It is the metabolite from caffeine that kind of gives you all of the benefits of caffeine without any of the negative side effects. It's not going to stress you out. It doesn't last very long compared to caffeine. People report that they're able to get a full night's rest even if they've consumed paraxanthine at 6 or 7:00 at night. So the people who are not the early morning gym goers drink their caffeine first thing in the morning, they can get some good rest at night. Well, now, the people who go to the gym in the afternoon can have some sort of an energy drink or pre-workout, that also gives them energy and doesn't hurt their sleep at night. Sleep is your number one way to grow.

Ashwagandha is a really unique ingredient, because the benefits are so wide ranging. Everything from stress reduction to hormone improvement to muscle mass to sexual function. I could go and print off a sheet that probably has ten different categories in which ashwagandha can benefit somebody.

L-Theanine is a great ingredient to pair with caffeine because it helps blunt your cortisol response. I personally, whenever I'm looking at an energy drink, I look for one that has about 200mg of L-Theanine in it to help reduce that cortisol response.

BLG 100 is a clear whey protein isolate. It goes into solution and it's clear. In the past, most of our whey protein isolates are cloudy. This is a unique ingredient from the standpoint that it lends itself better to juicy flavors. Whereas previously, whey protein isolate, you would more typically see like creamy chocolate, vanilla, strawberries and cream type flavors. It's opening the door to more juicy, fruity flavors.

N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine is thought to be a more bioactive form of L-Tyrosine because it's more soluble. There's kind of some conflicting data on that; a lot of debate about whether or not it actually is better. But it is more soluble. You know, L-Tyrosine does not go into beverage very well. If you're going to use something, N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine is the go to one for a drink. One thing that people need to be at least aware of from a stability standpoint is the acetyl group on the tyrosine can break off in the beverage and form acetic acid. And so you can get over a long period of time, you could see your beverage start tasting a little bit more vinegary.

Alpha-GPC contains choline, so alpha-glycerylphosphorylcholine, which is a nutrient found in foods like eggs and soy. It is good for your brain. It can help strengthen memory, improve mental focus and learning, increase positive mental health, and even helps the mind muscle connection, which is why you see it in pre workouts.

Prebiotics are a type of fiber that your body, your gut, uses for growth. So the bacteria in your gut need a fuel source—prebiotic fibers are that fuel source. Prebiotics are, they can be good for your gut depending on what kind of prebiotics you consume. I've heard some conflicting information on what types of prebiotics you should be consuming. If your intestines, if your gut health is already poor, feeding it a prebiotic can just add to the inflammation because you're just feeding the bacteria that is already not good for you.

One ingredient that I think more formulators need to be paying attention to allulose. It's a non digestible sugar, about 70% as sweet as sugar. Some of the research that I'm aware of actually shows that it is beneficial for your insulin sensitivity. Especially if you consume it, you know, right before a meal.

I personally am just grateful for some of the companies that push the envelope, that kind of challenge the status quo as far as the regulatory things are concerned. I think we need change in the way that some of these ingredients are regulated. One compound that I would personally like to see deregulated is psilocybin, from mushrooms. Yes, it's a mind-altering substance. It also has some really great clinical research behind it for curing depression. We shouldn't be putting up roadblocks to those things.

The biggest formulation challenge working with cutting-edge actives? Depending on the format, if it's in a beverage, it can be solubility. It can also be the taste. A lot of times you come up with a new ingredient and it just tastes really bad.

When companies are looking to add adaptogens and other functional ingredients, they should think about what the application of the product is. Is it a powder that's going to get mixed up? Is it a beverage where everything needs to remain soluble? And they need to be taking into account what kind of flavor they want. A lot of these adaptogens have unique flavors, and brands need to be aware of of how all of those things are going to intersect and play.

Very rarely is anybody doing any sort of testing to validate their product. Nobody does. There are very few studies that actually get done that I'm aware of. Usually what happens is somebody will find a research article for something that already exists that shows a functional benefit. And then they throw it in a supplement. Sometimes it's at the dose of the study, sometimes it's not. Because there is a study out there that shows the benefit of consuming this, then they can point to it as long as they want and say, yeah, this is a substance that will help you. I don't think clinical validation matters as much as people think it does. I think the thing that people will remember most about your product is how it tastes. And the first taste is going to really set the standard. You can get anybody to buy a product once. What you're looking for is a repeat purchase. So you need that first experience to be amazing.

My job here at Sensapure is to currently help build out our network of trusted manufacturing partners, so that when brands come to us and they need to be connected with somebody that they can trust and rely on, that we have somebody to send them to who we feel confident in their ability to get the product made. A couple of my proudest moments: I would say one area where I really have been able to help a couple brands is when they have been working with a contract manufacturer for certain amount of time, and they don't own their own formula. That's a really tough spot to be in as a brand because you've developed a product, you have a product, it's out on the market, it tastes a certain way, and maybe this contract manufacturer is no longer able to meet the demands of your growth. You don't own the IP, so it limits how scalable you can be as a business. What I've been able to do is help a couple brands reverse engineer their products with their taste staying intact. Due to our ability to use this tool of Sensory Quant, the taste difference is indistinguishable. We've helped liberate the brand from having their contract manufacturer be a bottleneck.

Some of the sourcing challenges that we face: right now tariffs are a big one. Prices are going up and that shifts where you would look to source it from. And then the question is, does it taste the same if you're going to replace it? Let's say you're getting a green tea extract from China; does it taste the same coming from a different country with different growing conditions? That can be a big risk. In order to make sure that we have a match, we use a sensory analysis tool called the triangle test. A triangle test is basically where you take two samples that are exactly the same, and then add in a third sample that might taste a little different. The goal of it is to see whether or not people can tell the difference. So you use this when you're trying to see if the change that you made to your formulation is something that is actually impactful or not.

Companies can make sure that their product stands out in the market by making sure that it tastes amazing. Taste is the number one reason that consumers will buy your product again. Smell, texture, and color play an important role in the way your consumer experiences the product. You know, you can take two beverages and color them completely different and it will change what people think the flavor is. Take Gatorade, for example: it's an orange flavor, but it's a blue color. A lot of people don't recognize that it's actually just an orange flavor.

I would say the number one way to make sure that your beverage tastes amazing is to conduct sensory panels. Sensory panels are a great way to get consumer feedback on what they actually think of your product. Currently in this industry, what we tend to see is somebody has an idea and you have somebody at the company who is the king taster. They make all of the decisions about whether or not they're going to move forward with the flavor. The more disciplined brands will conduct sensory panels to ensure that the product actually stands out in the marketplace. They will use some blind tasting: here's my drink, here's a competitor's drink, here's another competitor's drink. Which one do consumers prefer? Because they are obsessed with making sure that their product is the best tasting. Sensory Quant is a tool that we've developed here at Sensapure to be able to perform our sensory analysis, and help brands differentiate themselves in the marketplace by flavor. If you want data that shows our product tastes better than all the other products that are out there, that's what we can do.