The goal of GoodSport is to improve sports nutrition.
A new sports nutrition drink called GoodSport aims to upend the competition and provide efficient hydration. The product contains ingredients that consumers consider to be natural, and it gets a lot of its hydration from ingredients that come from ultrafiltered milk.
Michelle McBride is the founder and CEO of GoodSport Nutrition, the company that produced the product and went on to create it. When her son was playing youth sports, Ms. McBride was searching for a natural way to keep him hydrated. She ultimately decided on chocolate milk, citing it as the source of inspiration for the current GoodSport beverage.
She remarked, “I started considering milk as a source of hydration.” “After doing some research, I came across a UK study that proved milk is a healthy source of hydration. It has the ideal ratio of carbohydrates and electrolytes to provide you the most hydration possible.
There is no prior experience in the food industry for Ms. McBride. She is a lawyer who has experience working with numerous charitable organizations. However, she had met Andy Friedman—the creator and former CEO of SkinnyPop Popcorn and current founding partner of GoodSport Nutrition—through her involvement in youth sports. Early on in the process, Bob Murray, PhD, the former director of the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, was brought in to assist with the formulation’s development. He is currently
Mr. Friedman stated, “I felt that we could disrupt two huge categories — sports drinks and dairy — if we could create a clear, shelf-stable sports drink from milk that would be effective and great tasting.” “It’s really thrilling.”
Ms. McBride didn’t think the early prototypes’ milky look was appealing. How to get rid of the milkiness while maintaining the health benefits of milk was the question she was attempting to address. She found Kimberlee (KJ) Burrington, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Dairy Research, through further investigation. Ms. Burrington is currently the American Dairy Products Institute’s director of technology development, education, and training.
“We demonstrated to the GoodSport Nutrition team how electrolytes, vitamins, and carbohydrates in milk can be harnessed through ultrafiltration to create a clear drink with the mouthfeel that consumers would anticipate from a sports drink,” Ms. Burrington said.
“Milk proteins are wonderful high-quality proteins, but they are not needed for hydration,” Ms. McBride continued. Because they are difficult to digest, they may cause performance barriers. To make our drink, we therefore eliminated the protein.
An additional advantage is that milk permeate, an ultrafiltered ingredient used in GoodSport formulations, is frequently a byproduct of the ultrafiltration procedure. Reusing the milk permeate for the sports drink adds another level of upcycling to GoodSport.
According to Ms. McBride, “there is no doubt that consumers care about sustainability in their products.” “We are thrilled to be a part of the dairy industry’s sustainability initiatives. We want to spread the word about the product’s efficacy as well as how it helps to cut down on waste.
According to the company, GoodSport has three times the electrolyte content of traditional sports drinks with 1,600 mg of electrolytes per 16.9 oz serving, 33% less sugar, two types of carbohydrates for optimal hydration, and hydration that is demonstrated to last for two hours after consumption. The product is also a great source of B vitamins and a good source of calcium. It is shelf stable and free of lactose.
Mr. Murray stated, “I’ve spent my career researching exercise performance and hydration, so I know milk has the ingredients to provide superior hydration, but no one has ever found a way to turn milk into an incredibly effective and refreshing sports drink.” “It’s thrilling to be a member of the group that’s revolutionizing the sports drink market with unparalleled hydration.”
Athletes and fitness enthusiasts who take their workouts seriously and pay attention to hydration are the company’s target market. Consumption times may occur before, during, or after exercise.
You may also like:
Food security in emerging nations: issues and remedies
Are drinks the secret to increasing cannabis use among consumers?
Managing the lack of labour for mushroom picking
According to Ms. McBride, “We’re not just making products with healthy ingredients—we’re making products that are supported by science.”
There are four varieties of the beverage available in 16.9 oz single-serve bottles: citrus, berry, fruit punch, and lemon lime. In addition to being offered by the company on goodsport.com and Amazon.com, it will also be sold in select Chicagoland stores this spring, with a wider distribution to follow.
The difficulty, according to Ms. McBride, was figuring out how to use the naturally occurring electrolytes and carbohydrates in milk to create a clear, refreshing beverage that would quench one’s thirst and offer genuinely effective hydration before, during, and after exercise. “Because GoodSport offers both, athletes and fitness enthusiasts no longer have to choose between sports drink efficacy and natural ingredients.”