Bonafide Provisions founder on entering juice space: ‘This is category correction’
Bonafide Provisions’ first product line was a range of USDA Organic Certified frozen bone broth, honed from a recipe that CEO and founder Sharon Brown would sell to her patients at her nutrition practice in California because of its rich nutritional profile.
“The biggest challenge I faced was that people wouldn’t or couldn’t make bone broth,” Brown told BeverageDaily.
Consumption of bone broth has been around for centuries but the popularity of it dwindled when packaged shelf-stable soups and broths hit store shelves in the 1950s, according to Brown.
“It’s not a new concept, it’s a super food that’s been buried,” she said. “It’s loaded in amino acids and it’s the most viable source of bioavailable collagen.”
After interest from those outside her practice exploded, the company transitioned to a commercial kitchen to keep up with demand. The broth is now available in more than 4,500 retail locations including Whole Foods and Fresh Thyme markets.
Vegetable-forward taste
The launch of its USDA Organic Certified “Drinkable Veggies” line was a response to consumers looking for a way to “sneak bone broth into everything,” according to Brown.
The launch of bone broth beverages is also riding a shift taking place in the 100% juice category where consumers are looking to ditch sugar and are embracing vegetables as an alternative.
New product launches using vegetables as an ingredient tripled in 2015 compared with 2012, according to the Tetra Pak 100% Juice Index.
Each of the five flavors of Bonafide Provisions' beverage line uses chicken bone broth and a blend of vegetables, which undergo high-pressure pasteurization (HPP) to retain key nutrients and taste. Aside from some lemon juice in each of the flavors, the company is intent on keeping its formulation fruit-free and sugar-free with less than 110 calories per bottle.
“Vegetables should taste like vegetables,” Brown said. “We are definitely disrupting, but this is really category correction,” she said. “We’ve gone into the juice set and corrected it from a nutritional standpoint.”
Bonafide Provisions will be expanding its R&D capabilities in 2018 to help advance consumer awareness of bone broth, Brown added.
