Cooperation between Symrise and KitchenTown Berlin leads to natural taste for Holy Energy

The collaboration of Symrise with KitchenTown, the food and food technology network and makerspace in Berlin, has led to energizing results. Symrise supports the startup company Holy Energy in translating the market trend toward natural flavors into a trendy sustainable energy drink.

Many consumers today highly value transparency and authenticity in the wide variety of natural food and ingredients available to them. Market research shows that consumers around the world generally want to know what all product categories of their food and beverages contain, how farmers grow the agricultural raw materials, and how they affect the planet. This has recently also been the case for consumers of energy-boosting drinks.

The startup company Holy Energy has taken up the challenge of developing this kind of drink with a natural energy booster. To make sure it tastes great, Holy Energy has joined forces with Symrise. The companies got to know each other in Berlin during the collaboration of Symrise with KitchenTown, an innovation platform for food and food technology startups. Together, Symrise and Holy Energy have developed a beverage gaming booster with natural fruit flavors and coloring. It comes with a very low sugar content (0.1gr/100ml) and no taurine or fillers.

A question of taste
The founders of Holy Energy, Frederick Jost, Mathias Horsch and Phillip Naß, started feverishly working on the development of the product last year. Together with the technologists and the Symrise beverage development team, the founders quickly put their ideas and ambitions into practice: A joint process helped accelerate the product development, also under COVID-19 conditions. The team screened and filtered a wide range of ideas and quickly translated them into the final product. Symrise, with its expertise in balancing taste in low-sugar-beverages or those that enhance well-being, helped make the product taste great naturally.

For this, they needed to come up with a natural taste solution. In addition, the Symrise technologists could choose from Diana Food’s wide range of natural colors. These support the tasty fruit extracts visually.

“Looking back, our collaboration with Symrise turned out as one of the best decisions in HOLY’s short existence. We very much appreciate the expertise, motivation and agility of the Symrise development and sales team. It enabled us to set new standards in the powdered energy drink category. We thank the Symrise team for their confidence in us,” says Frederick Jost of Holy Energy.

Daniel Balke, application technologist in product development at Symrise, wanted to use creative flavors to promote the optimal launch of the product on the market. He combined familiar flavors with new, hip tastes and came up with three flavors with exotic combinations. Raspberry yuzu, citrus calamansi and pineapple passion fruit are expected to suit the gamers’ tastes.

A mindful energy boost
Caffeine typically provides the boost in energy drinks, as it does in Holy Energy. One serving of the drink contains as much caffeine as two cups of coffee, which equals less than the daily caffeine intake of most consumers. At the same time, consumers are increasingly paying attention to their health and well-being, and want to know where the caffeine comes from. The founders of the startup have incorporated this thought in their product development and recommend that their customers consume mindfully.

Holy Energy chose a special approach in launching their energy booster with natural flavors and other ingredients that promote well-being. The startup puts caffeine into the product by means of the specially developed NewCaffTM. The patented, microencapsulated caffeine releases slowly in the body over about four hours, leading to a steady caffeine boost. Green tea extract combined with L-theanin provides the full effect. This has proven to counteract potential side effects of caffeine, such as nervousness. The booster contains vitamins which promote additional well-being.

Clean gaming booster
Gaming boosters fall into the category of nutritional supplements designed to help players of online and computer games reach their full potential. They promise better focus without overstimulating the nervous system. Many of the well-known boosters contain ingredients with a questionable reputation for the long-term well-being of consumers. The three founders of the Holy Energy company thus wanted to create a sustainable and functional alternative to conventional gaming boosters. Since Symrise supports this approach, it offered its assistance with providing the startup’s consumer-friendly boosters the perfect taste.

On the road to the future with sustainable energy
Holy Energy and Symrise have developed an energy drink with a natural, authentic taste. It addresses the well-being of the consumer and at the same time operates in the trendy gaming booster market. Since the startup places great value on sustainability, it delivers the powder for its dried beverage with a reusable shaker. Symrise also provides the startup with support for this, as sustainability plays an important for both companies. The company has taken the initial step with an online shop. It plans to expand its distribution and to continue developing products in other categories as well. Holy Energy and Symrise want to continue their collaboration, translating market trends into natural drinks that consumers love.

Innovation based on natural flavors
The trend toward naturalness continues to grow and has become a key consumer preference around the globe. Symrise supports both this trend and its customers – food and beverage manufacturers who want to serve the trend. Symrise owns long-standing expertise in natural raw materials and gentle preparation methods. At the same time, legislation has defined clear requirements for natural flavorings. They must fulfill strict legal requirements for base materials and manufacturing processes in order to label them as natural.

For this purpose, Symrise created its code of nature® platform for natural taste. This combines the best of nature with the best of science to support its customers as they master challenges surrounding natural product solutions. The comprehensive approach decodes consumer trends and connects these insights with responsibly and sustainably sourced ingredients, regulatory advisory expertise and Symrise’s long-standing scientific tradition in order to develop natural, authentic taste solutions that consumers love.

In collaborations such as KitchenTown Berlin, Symrise makes its comprehensive knowledge available to startup companies. As one of the founders of the flavor industry and an expert partner for natural ingredients, Symrise attaches great importance to external collaborations, which range from universities and research institutes to industrial partners and startups. Working in such ecosystems, Symrise contributes its in-depth regulatory expertise to comply with the complex and changing regulatory requirements.