The Rise of a new breed of Wellness Bar and functional drinks - a case study with Upraising organic coffee
A conversation with Guy Morley, Co-Founder of UPRAISING
Healthy Habits for mental health and performance
The health and wellness industry has been witnessing a paradigm shift in recent years.
As more people become conscious of their overall wellbeing, inside and out, mental and physical, mind-body and spirit, the demand for hospitality concepts tailored to this shift to a quasi biohacking approach is slowly becoming more mainstream. Wellness bars support an active lifestyle by providing protein, fiber, healthy fats, and low sugar content, making them a convenient and delicious snack option. Additionally, they promote a healthy gut by nourishing friendly bacteria with prebiotic fiber, which is essential for maintaining wellness and physical performance.
The Performance health bar
One such innovation is the emergence of a new breed of performance health bar, packed with plant protein, a wellness bar concept that focuses on offering a diverse range of health-promoting products and services. These bars also feature gluten free oats, which are light, tasty, and packed with plant protein to help you feel fuller, while being free from allergens and added sugar.
The objective here is very specific:
1/ to help clients prep themselves for performance
2/ assist them in maintaining performance whilst in action
3/ promote recovery post activity, helping them get back out there, ready to go one more time.
The future of the wellness bar
wellness bar concept image A.I. generated by Biofilico
The future of wellness bars and health bars lies in incorporating cutting-edge ingredients and technologies, combined with biophilic design, to create a holistic wellness experience maximized for its positive impact on overall health. Future wellness bars will include hand baked options. These bars will be packed full of crunchy toasted super seeds, juicy fruit, and gut-friendly whole foods.
Firstly then, this includes the use of adaptogenic mushrooms, nootropics, supplements, and nutritious beverages to support various aspects of health.
Additionally, the adoption of sustainable and eco-friendly interior design practices, such as biophilic design and a strict sustainable, non-toxic materials policy in the fit-out, ensures the store and aesthetic context is aligned with the concept, ensuring the wellness bar has been maximized for its wellbeing properties..
Functional coffee for wellbeing
Today, I am joined by a man on the forefront of creating the type of delicious functional beverage products that will, I believe, come to populate this new generation of wellness bar concepts that I'm betting represent the future of F&B offerings at premium boutique fitness studios, health clubs and wellness-oriented members clubs.
Guy is the Co-Founder of Upraising - an organic coffee brand powered by nootropics and adaptogens (we'll get to what these terms mean shortly).
He previously built the iced tea brand Kailani and before that worked as a music and entertainment lawyer in London, UK.
mattmorley
What was the opportunity here when launching Upraising? I've tried to set the scene but what attracted you to the functional coffee market in particular?
04:13.55
Guy
So as you said in your introduction, nootropics, adaptogens and functional mushrooms are having their moment in the wellness sector, it's a huge growth area. I think the idea of mixing them with coffee comes originally from the US.
There's been a Finnish company doing it there for about 10 years while in Europe there was nothing similar.
So the idea behind Upraising was to have a look at what they were doing in the US and do version adapted to the European consumer market with organic coffee, fair trade coffee and functional mushrooms, adaptogens and... it's the right timing, we launched in November 2022.
05:04.95
mattmorley
What do you think is behind this trend, I'm almost reluctant to use that word but clearly it is having a moment as you say.
wellness bar concept image A.I. generated by Biofilico
We're seeing the products coming onto the market from my perspective I'm seeing F&B concepts adapted to this type of product coming onto the market, is this the start of a new wellness wave?
05:35.30
Guy
Snack bars as functional medicine
It’s definitely part of a much larger wellness movement I suppose of ‘food as medicine’ so people realizing that what they’re eating and what they’re doing is really impacting their health, so it’s all a form of preventative medicine. Wellness bars actively feed the body with essential nutrients, promoting wellness from the inside out. These bars often contain zero added sugar, making them guilt-free snacks that help avoid sugar crashes and empty calories.
A growing awareness that medicine, just taking pills or undergoing surgery is more of a band-aid rather than a solution in the long-term.
So people are now becoming more aware. Trying to avoid illnesses completely and using food therefore as a source of their medicine.
This is a way of enhancing something that people drink I mean the vast majority of the population globally drink coffee and has its own health benefits already in its pure form, then we’re making it even more beneficial for both mental and physical health.
06:26.80
mattmorley
Healthy mind healthy body
I’m reading a book at the moment by Dr. Peter Atta called ‘Outlive’. That’s all about what he terms to be medicine ‘3.0’ this is about looking into the future and trying to do everything possible now to help live a long and healthy life. Wellness bars can be the ultimate daily snack for maintaining a healthy mind and body, providing a guilt-free, nourishing, and satisfying option for daily consumption.
I think there is a shift in perception coming. So perhaps we need to dig a little deeper into some of this terminology and some of the ingredients. We’ve used those words ‘adaptogens’ and ‘nootropics’. So let’s start with them. What are their health benefits?
Nootropics and adaptogens for wellbeing
07:16.47
Guy
Yeah, so nootropics are basically ingredients that help boost and improve cognitive function and they can be natural. They don't have to be natural.
So for example, Adderall which people say is for ADHD is a nootropic, caffeine is one of the the most commonly used nootropics in nature because that boosts concentration.
Functional mushrooms for mental wellness
So then we use only natural nootropics, things like Lion's Mane mushroom - a functional mushroom.
Everyone knows the psychedelic mushrooms with psilocybin, these are probably the level below that with no psilocybin present at all but they do have very strong properties that are beneficial to humans either physically or mentally.
Lion's Mane is good for mental focus and concentration. Ideal for a wellness bar concept in a coworking space or other workplace context in other words.
Adaptogens meanwhile are natural ingredients that are helpful for the body to relieve stress, so that could be mental or physical stress.
Reishi is a functional mushroom that helps balance cortisol levels which is also one of the reasons we mix it with coffee because coffee in some people when they get the jitters is because their cortisol levels are rising so reishi mixing ratio with the coffee will balance that out.
08:46.39
mattmorley
Benefits of biophilic design for a functional health bar setting
So there you get into some combination of both physical and also mental health benefits.. the parallel is interesting with wellness interiors and biophilic design.
Often we're looking at sense of vitality or a connection with nature, so a mood enhancing feeling less stressed, less anxious and just a little bit sharper, your concentration comes back, you feel restored, mental fatigue is alleviated.
Functional drinks for a wellness bar menu concept
How did you start to slice up those distinct benefit concepts into a product range so that 1 is but perhaps offering something for cognitive while another is more about physical performance?
10:09.13
Guy
wellness bar concept image A.I. generated by Biofilico
So we started originally mixing it with coffee and that has various health benefits, I mean we use organic fair trade coffee with limited pesticides. But coffee is a good example of something that has multiple benefits - for concentration, as a mood booster, an increase in metabolism and even can help with weight loss and physical performance. It’s also high in antioxidants. Wellness bars can also be included as snack bars in the menu, promoting wellness and a balanced diet. These wellness bars hit the sweet spot naturally with real fruit and 100% good stuff, avoiding sugar crashes and emphasizing their satisfying and nourishing qualities.
Improved gut health as a potential wellness bar benefit
We’ve just been speaking to a gut health expert in Norway who’s a real advocate of coffee and says you have to drink 4.50 to 1 litres of coffee a day to get the proper amount of polyphenols to boost your gut health. Wellness bars also tick all the right boxes for gut health by being low in calories, free from allergens, and providing natural prebiotics.
So it started with that and then we wanted to improve it even further and we’re thinking well when do people drink coffee? Typically it’s in the morning, starting their day so they want to focus better.
They want to be more productive so we’ve got one coffee for that called Flow State. There’s another one for those who want a mood boost - coffee is often a very social phenomenon, we go out to cafes or we have people around at our houses for coffee.
11:39.99
Guy
Improved sleep and recovery potential from wellness bar drinks
We've got one product that seems to be helping with sleep called Bright Mood and another product we're re-jigging at the moment called Live Well for immune boosting energy.
It will now evolve into more of a stamina and resilience offering, much more for people who were taking a coffee before a long cycle ride, run or surf session.
12:22.26
mattmorley
Possible locations for wellness bar concepts
So I think there’s clearly one case for this type of functional health bar being present in really any kind of physical performance center, be that a tennis club, gym, or fitness studio, but particularly around competitive or team sports. Wellness bars can also be enjoyed during an afternoon tea break, making them a versatile option for various settings.
A class of yoga might require less in terms of the mental game although there’s a lot of focus and concentration involved there around concentration.
In the process of doing a bit of research into these ‘brain cafes’ in the US, they’re becoming increasingly common in co-working spaces as well. Where clearly it’s more about mental focus and cognitive performance.
Upraising target markets in the wellness industry
How have you developed your sales strategy? Is it health food stores or boutique gyms?
14:01.51
Guy
It’s been a very wide audience actually in terms of our business customers. I mean we’ve sold a lot into cafes and restaurants offering brunch for example, which is obviously a social setting so the Bright Mood version sells best there.
In a yoga studio it’s Live Well and in a food deli where you would go and buy your nice cheeses and chocolates, all three versions sell pretty well. Wellness bars can even be delivered on the same day for first-time customers, enhancing convenience and appeal.
So it’s I wouldn’t say we’ve been limited in where we can sell them. It’s more which one sells better and which type of place it is.
Something we do need to work on that it’s currently only ground coffee we use whereas most cafes use a whole bean and grind on site.
We think we figured out a way to add in our functional ingredients now and that will open up more business opportunities, gyms and so on.
15:02.46
wellness bar concept image A.I. generated by Biofilico
mattmorley
So if we think about the functional benefits that you could imagine Upraising doing and future product lines I wonder if that could perhaps give us clues about where else we might see the functional health bar concept emerging in future?
15:42.70
Guy
Stratification of the wellness bar ingredient market
I think that’s probably where the future for functional health bars and wellness bars in a fitness context is going - more and more tailored, including gluten free options. At the moment it’s still in its infancy. So anything is considered good but slowly it will become more and more focused on exactly the benefits you’re after.
17:02.70
mattmorley
What about adjacent sectors that you might have your eye on, whether for the Upraising brand to go into or that you consider near neighbors in terms of functional health benefits. You mentioned gut health for example, there’s obviously protein..
17:55.50
Guy
Yeah I mean all of those things you mentioned are possibles. There are some limiting factors for us for example, probiotics we have to to use probiotics that are resistant to heat if we’re going to put them in a hot drink.
This is in an industry with a lot of less credible products, if we can say it diplomatically, we want to focus on the best quality ingredients so we’re speaking to the gut health specialist and looking at the cordyceps mushroom for the cardio respiratory system.
L-theanine wellness benefits
But unlike other brands we are not tied to mushrooms so we can use other nootropics and adaptogens for example L-theanine is a good one that helps cognition that we take from green tea.
So for the first year we'd stick with hot drinks then I think things like protein powders, chocolates and so on could come into play later.
19:56.60
mattmorley
It's almost as if one can see the next wave coming on the horizon right? I think that could be around concepts that perhaps for now feel quite 'out there' on the verge of acceptability in terms of both societal perception and Legality but you know micro-dosing is an obvious one. You're seeing brands like Earth Resonance now seemingly selling 30-day packs of Microdose Psilocybin mushrooms online in the Netherlands.
Sourcing high quality ingredients for health bar coffee, tea and juice blends
Guy
We’ve always used the best quality products, avoiding empty calories by sourcing high-quality ingredients. We’re very open about where we get our coffee from, where we get our mushrooms from (Scandinavia rather than China where they can have issues with contamination and heavy metals).
And also things like labor laws in Scandinavia are much higher standard so you might be buying an organic mushroom in China but if it’s been produced in a farm where people are working 18 hours a day in harsh conditions you’re not particularly helping the world improve.
So we’ve been very careful about the products we’ve used in terms of communicating what they are and what they do, it’s the responsibility of being a first mover in a space like this basically.
I think as we go on we will provide ever more information about the research studies that are done for example on L-theanine mixed with coffee. There’s a study that that shows that it prolongs kind of concentration and avoids dips.
The functional performance drinks niche
mattmorley
When you look down the pipeline say 5 years into the future around this niche of functional performance drinks and the type of hospitality concept that they're best suited to, how do you see this sector evolving?
Guy
It can go very far but I think there will be more obvious differentiation between more mainstream companies while others will become more specialist, focusing on the origin of heir ingredients and so on. synthetic versions of these ingredients just isn't the same, it's an inferior product.