As digitally native brands continue to blur the lines between adult wellness and child nutrition, products like juice cleanse business Raw Generation’s Little Sippers may help set a new standard aligning ingredient transparency and sensory appeal.
With US sales in the children’s food and beverage category projected to reach nearly $94 billion by 2032, per Renub Research data, brands are racing to innovate in a market defined by health-conscious parents and increasingly selective young palates.
Parents are paying closer attention to ingredient transparency, with an emphasis on reducing sugar, avoiding artificial dyes and boosting nutrient density.
Similarly, brands are reformulating offerings with real fruits and vegetables, dairy-free bases and immunity-boosting nutrients that align with broader health and wellness trends.
Despite these shifts, the children’s’ beverage aisle remains saturated with sugar-packed SKUs, leaving room for disruption – especially from digitally native, health-first brands like Raw Generation.
Raw Generation, known for its cold-pressed juices and plant-forward cleanses, is the latest to enter the children’s’ nutrition space with its new line, Little Sippers – a collection of frozen, raw fruit-and-vegetable juice blends developed specifically for children.
From home to market
For Jessica Rosen, co-founder and creative director of Raw Generation, the idea for Little Sippers was born out of personal experience.
“The decision to launch a line of kids juices really came from what I experienced as my babies turned into toddlers and became extremely picky eaters,” Rosen said. “Both my son and daughter were introduced to cold-pressed juices when they started solids around 6 months, and loved them. As they approached the age where they learned how to say no, feeding them became a trickier task. I learned that this is a pretty universal problem.”
Rosen recognized an untapped opportunity to address the nutritional pain points many parents face during early childhood – and the gap between what is marketed as “healthy” and what actually delivers nutrition.
Each 4-ounce bottle of Little Sippers contains up to 70 calories, less than one gram of dietary fiber, up to one gram of protein and between 8 to 14 grams of total sugar. For comparison, Honest Kids’ Organic Super Fruit Punch contains 35 calories and 8 grams of sugar per six-ounce box, while Apple and Eve Organics delivers 90 calories and 20 grams of sugar in a 6.75-ounce serving.
Nutrition meets formulation and flavor
To meet both taste and nutritional standards, Rosen worked closely with Raw Generation’s Chief Nutrition Officer Lisa Testa, a holistic nutritionist, to develop the first batch of Little Sippers in all seven colors of the rainbow – each incorporating a range of whole produce.
Testa developed a taste test with a “group of kids from 2 to 16 years old.”
While a few flavors were not “unanimously loved,” Testa returned to the test kitchen to develop a formulation that was “100% approved by the test group,” she said.
The final lineup of Little Sippers contains more than 40 raw fruits and vegetables, all flash-frozen to preserve nutrients without the use of high pressure or heat pasteurization, Rosen explained. The juices are shipped frozen directly to consumers via Raw Generation’s DTC channels – a move that not only differentiates Little Sippers from shelf-stable options but also enables ingredient integrity, she said.
“We have to freeze the bottles and ship them frozen right to the customer,” Rosen said. “Our products just don’t have the shelf life – which is a good thing when you are talking about nutrition.”
Strategic simplicity via DTC
Raw Generation is applying the same ecommerce-first strategy that built its core line to its kids’ platform, Rosen said.
Little Sippers is available exclusively online via the brand’s owned channels and Amazon. This model allows Raw Generation to maintain control over the customer experience and build direct relationships with families, which Rosen sees as essential to long-term brand loyalty.
As for the future of the brand, Rosen views Little Sippers as the beginning of a broader family-focused portfolio.
“Whether someone finds Raw Generation for themselves and then introduces Little Sippers to their children or aging parents, or vice versa, our products are a nourishing addition to any diet,” said Rosen.
This summer Raw Generation will launch a product line “helping women recover from pregnancy, birth and postpartum hormone changes,” Rose added.