From more energy and hydration to protein and gut health, functional beverages have traditionally always sold consumers a tangible benefit. As the category expands, however, brands are moving beyond what a drink can do for the body and towards how it can make one feel.
Alcohol-free spirits brand Sentia, for example, is positioning its latest product, Sentia Ease, around “social ease” and relaxation. The ready-to-drink sparkling range uses a blend of plant-derived compounds designed to interact with the brain’s GABA pathways, and is aimed at social occasions where consumers want to feel relaxed and sociable without alcohol.
As beverage brands increasingly look to address the emotional side of drinking, could targeting how consumers want to feel become the next frontier for functional beverages?
From benefits to outcomes
The functional beverage category has expanded well beyond its traditional associations with sports and energy, with brands increasingly developing products around specific consumer needs, routines and occasions.
Speaking at Future Food-Tech London 2026, David Randall, CEO of Space Goods, said consumers are increasingly looking at what products contain and the benefit they can get from consuming them, rather than simply what products leave out. He also pointed to an opportunity for functional food and beverage to be positioned around specific outcomes, such as: “How do I have a better morning? How do I have a sharper afternoon? How do I have a better sleep in the evening?”
“Consumers are looking to the future. They’re not building diets anymore; they’re building routines,” Randall said, arguing that the brands most likely to succeed will be those that fit into consumers’ existing routines and solve particular moments throughout the day.
That shifts the proposition from what is inside the can to what the consumer wants to get from it. Energy, hydration and recovery remain established functional propositions, but the same thinking can be applied to less tangible outcomes, including how consumers want to feel at different points in the day.
Alcohol-free social drinking
For Sentia, that shift from functional benefit to consumer outcome is particularly interesting because it applies to one of the more complicated roles traditionally played by alcohol: helping people relax and feel more at ease in social situations.
Jerome Pellaud, managing director at Sentia, said the continued growth of functional beverages reflects clear consumer demand for more from their drinks, with products increasingly designed around different benefits and occasions.
“One of them is the desire to unwind and relax at the end of an intense and often stressful day, ideally sharing that moment with friends, family or colleagues,” he said. “What most people are looking for is that ‘first drink’ feeling of relaxation.”
Pellaud said Sentia had identified a gap for a product offering relaxation through GABA system enhancement without alcohol, adding that consumers are looking for “social ease and ways to connect with others without alcohol’s baggage”.
That proposition is particularly interesting as consumers look for alternatives to alcohol that do more than replicate the taste or format of an alcoholic drink. Rather than recreating beer, wine or spirits without the alcohol, Sentia and other brands are attempting to build a product around the role alcohol can play in a social occasion and, ultimately, the feeling associated with it.
Changing drinking habits open up new opportunities
Circana data found that spending on alcohol fell 0.8% across the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, while low- and no-alcohol alternatives grew 7.3%.
Ananda Roy, senior vice president of strategic growth insights at Circana, said alcohol has been declining in popularity since the pandemic, resulting in a wider range of alternatives and healthier products that give consumers “much more choice about what we drink at home and when we socialise”.
That growing choice is creating more room for brands to develop drinks around specific occasions and needs, from socialising and relaxation to focus and energy. For functional beverages, it suggests the next stage of growth may be less about adding another ingredient and more about owning a particular moment and the way consumers want to feel in it.
