The crowded market for healthy beverages is an extremely competitive and tough business to break into, but Ammar Idlibi, a pediatric dentist from Bristol, is determined to get his sweet but tooth-friendly drink on local store shelves this year.
Idlibi spent more than a year and $700,000 of his own money developing and refining Healthy Sweet, a fruity drink aimed at toddlers.
So far, his persistence has paid off. Starting this month, Shop Rite and Big Y grocery stores will stock the all-natural drink. Idlibi plans to approach Walgreens later this year and by the end of 2012, he hopes to convince other large retailers like Target, Wal-Mart and CVS to carry his product line.
Idlibi is negotiating with a distributor to get Healthy Sweet in more Big Y stores and says if he expands later this year, he will need another $1 million.
Idlibi says he has treated “thousands of patients with multiple cavities and tooth decay,” since he opened his Kids Dental Care practice in Bristol 15 years ago.
The father of six children — ages 16, 13, 10, 3, 2 and 1 — says he can relate to parents who are looking for alternative beverages. He says drinking excessive amounts of soft drinks, milk and juice, especially before sleep or in between meals, is just plain harmful.
“It doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have it at all,” he said. “It’s a matter of how often and where.”
“Many parents think that if the juice or the milk is 100 percent natural with no added sugar, it is harmless to the teeth, but it is a fact that all juices and milk contain natural sugar that could promote tooth decay and obesity if consumed frequently,” said Idlibi.
“Furthermore, many of those juices are acidic in nature and may further weaken tooth enamel,” he said.
Tooth decay is one of the most common childhood diseases. More than half of all U.S. children between the ages of five and nine have had at least one cavity or filling and 78 percent of 17-year-olds have experienced tooth decay, said Idlibi.
“Almost daily, parents will ask me for my recommendation on what they can give their child to drink that is safe and healthy to drink,” said Idlibi. “The only truly tooth-safe beverage is water.”
Idlibi surfed the Internet, researched flavors and ingredients online, met with scientists and networked with other dentists to get ideas for a tasty, fruity and safe drink that would appeal to toddlers and make money at the same time.
But he’s finding the soft economy is making it more difficult to break into the health beverage market. Nationally consumers are buying fewer health drinks, which have gone from strong double-digit growth to declining sales.
Idlibi said he set his Healthy Sweet apart from other beverages with ingredients such as purified water, milk proteins that help strengthen gums and xylitol, a natural sweetener proven to have an antibacterial effect that can prevent tooth decay.
“There is nothing else like it on the market at this time,” said Idlibi. “It is 100 percent natural with no added preservatives and no artificial sweeteners, flavors or colors. And there’s no aftertaste.”
Idlibi said the drink comes in two sizes — 16 ounces for $2.69 and 46 ounces for $5.39.
Officials from Big Y and Shop Rite declined to comment on their marketing plans for the product or on what level of sales they expect.
