David Kania’s business venture started with a soccer game five years ago. His son, an avid young soccer player, developed vocal cord dysfunction, a condition that makes getting air to the lungs more difficult. It was triggered, Kania later learned, by the dye in the sports drinks his son was consuming.
“There is no nutritional value in drinks like Gatorade or Powerade,” Kania said. “As an entrepreneur, I figured there had to be a better way.”
Today, as co-founder of Hartford startup ThinkitDrinkit Kania is launching a beverage business in the emerging field of nutrigenomics, the science of how genes interact with nutrients.
“We’re trying to drive a demand for drinks that are customizable based on the nutritional needs of the consumer,” said Wayne Gryk, the company’s chief operating officer. ThinkitDrinkit is just now launching its U.S. operations, opening its first retail store this winter — a 900-square-foot café-style location — a half-mile from UConn’s Storrs campus.
Kania and Gryk are bullish on what they say is growing consumer demand for the food and beverage industry to provide products with higher nutritional value and health benefits. Market research firm Business Insights recently estimated that nutrigenomic testing alone is a $730 million a year market in the U.S., and is expected to grow by 20 percent annually.
Nutrigenomic testing, which enables consumers to learn what their individual nutrient needs are, is a service that ThinkitDrinkit will make available to its customers. Testing — which will be done at an additional cost and take about three days for results — is not a requirement for customers, but knowing that information, Kania says, enables people to more effectively target their nutritional needs.
And the level of customization the company offers ranges from nutritional goals — such as sports performance, bone health, or cardiac health — to the drink’s flavor, calorie count and nutrients. ThinkitDrinkit will even offer drinks that provide greater health benefits geared towards gender. “Young girls and women, for instance, may need more vitamin D for bone health,” Kania explained. “Our drinks can be tailored to provide that boost.”
So far ThinkitDrinkit has more than 100 combinations of flavors and boosts, Gryk said. And as a small startup, both Gryk and Kania feel they have a significant advantage over beverage industry giants like Coca-Cola and Pepsi, which see the power of this emerging market.
“As the industry moves more towards personalization, the mass market approach becomes less relevant,” Kania said. “And the major, slower moving players struggle with how to customize their products.”
That advantage has enabled ThinkitDrinkit, which has been in development for four years, to test the international nutrigenomics market selectively in recent years — under private label agreements — in the Netherlands, Argentina and China. But as the science of nutrigenomics has advanced and the culture of customization has risen among American consumers, Kania thinks his company is poised for success in the U.S.
With $225,000 in funding from the state of Connecticut, the company opened its headquarters in Hartford and now employs 22 people, including many veterans, far exceeding the five hires that the state required. “I think we’re demonstrating how the public and private sectors can work together,” Kania said.
Kania is optimistic about his company’s upside and projects it will earn nearly $2.5 million this year, a reasonable goal given the retail store’s location near the state’s largest university.
“We selected Storrs not only because of its large number of students, but also because UConn has such great sports teams and our personalized nutrition can be geared towards athletics — from endurance to recovery,” Kania said.
“We’re targeting a different kind of consumer, one who’s looking for a more functional drink,” Gryk added. And the company is providing multiple ways to do that.
“A customer can personalize a drink in real time at our store’s nutridista bar, they could order a custom formula online or in our retail store,” Gryk explained. “Typically, our [powder-based] drinks come in a 14-day supply.”
The company plans to start small and grow slowly.
“Within six months of opening our first retail store, we hope to start internet sales nationally,” Gryk said. The company plans to open an additional retail store near Yale University, which is no stranger to the science of nutrigenomics. “Ultimately, it’s a lifestyle choice,” Kania said.
