Jetty, the brand new drink model from the founders of Poppi, is launching with 5 flavors.
Supply: Jetty
After disrupting the soda class with Poppi, founders Allison and Stephen Ellsworth at the moment are taking purpose at hydration with their new model, Jetty.
Beginning Monday, Jetty drinks and ready-to-mix electrolyte packets can be on cabinets at Complete Meals grocery shops and accessible on-line at Goal and Amazon.
The brand new, self-funded enterprise straight pits the Ellsworths towards PepsiCo, which purchased Poppi for $1.95 billion in 2025. Pepsi owns Gatorade, which dominates the U.S. sports activities drink class with about 60% market share, in line with Numerator information.
Poppi shook up the soda class with prebiotic fiber, low calorie and sugar counts and its enjoyable advertising geared toward Technology Z and millennials. Jetty seems to upend the hydration class via an analogous technique. To take action, it’ll face off not solely towards Gatorade but additionally a swarm of different upstarts trying to get in on the electrolyte-fueled development.
For many years, Gatorade and different sports activities drinks have pitched their merchandise to athletes who want electrolytes and fluids after an intense exercise, though many shoppers drink them day-after-day with out even sweating. Jetty is geared toward individuals who want a hydration increase, however not the identical degree of electrolytes or sugar as a conventional sports activities drink.
“Nobody has actually created a product for simply on a regular basis hydration — actually on a regular basis hydration for regular individuals,” Allison Ellsworth, Jetty’s chief model officer, advised CNBC. “Like I wakened this morning, I did not run a marathon.”
The GLP-1 hydration dilemma
Poppi co-founder Allison Ellsworth. She and her husband, Stephen, are launching a brand new drink model, Jetty.
Jetty
Following Poppi’s sale to PepsiCo, Ellsworth stayed on as an advisor to the model, though she mentioned she is now not concerned within the day-to-day operations.
After 10 years constructing Poppi, Ellsworth mentioned, she lastly had free time. As Ellsworth tells it, she went to the physician for the primary time in a decade. She began utilizing a GLP-1 remedy and misplaced 60 kilos.
That is how Jetty got here to be.
Ellsworth’s husband, Stephen, now CEO of the brand new model, observed she wasn’t hydrating, even when she got here again from the health club.
GLP-1 medicines corresponding to Ozempic and Mounjaro could make individuals much less thirsty. However as a result of staying hydrated also can assist mitigate a few of the medication’ unwanted effects, corresponding to nausea and complications, it may well change into extra essential.
“I bodily battle getting liquid into my physique,” Ellsworth mentioned.
Jetty is supposed to resolve that downside.
Plain outdated water is commonly much less interesting to shoppers, even dehydrated GLP-1 customers, however extra flavorful choices with added advantages will be tempting. About 44% of GLP-1 customers report consuming extra practical drinks, in line with EY-Parthenon’s third annual survey of greater than 3,600 present or former GLP-1 customers.
Ellsworth sees a broader attraction for Jetty, too.
“Our core viewers goes to be millennial mothers and Gen Z,” she mentioned. “Gen Z simply is not relating to those old-fashioned manufacturers, the legacy of the Gatorades and the Powerades. They’re simply not cool.”
Electrolyte elevation
Customers broadly have change into extra involved in staying hydrated.
Greenback gross sales of hydration and electrolyte merchandise climbed 20% to $2.6 billion over the 52 weeks ended Oct. 4, primarily based on information from SPINS, which tracks new common product codes, or UPCs. The class additionally has a powerful repeat purchaser price of 62%.
Nonetheless, the Ellsworths aren’t the one ones to note the potential in hydration. The variety of new gadgets within the class with annual gross sales of no less than $10,000 has elevated 41% over the past two years, in line with SPINS.
Large meals and beverage corporations have been trying to hydration, too.
Kraft Heinz debuted Capri Solar juice pouches and Kool-Assist packets with electrolytes this spring. In April, Pepsi unveiled an overhaul of the Gatorade model, targeted on making it extra interesting to a wider swath of shoppers, with extra potential events like a “contemporary morning begin” or an “afternoon stroll.” And Electrolit is a high performer for its distributor Keurig Dr Pepper, with 40% retail gross sales development within the firm’s third quarter.
All of which means extra competitors for shelf area and shoppers’ “share of throat,” an business time period for beverage market share.
To extend Jetty’s visibility throughout the grocery retailer and to maximise comfort for buyers, Jetty can be accessible in each powders and bottles.
Single-use electrolyte mixes are rising at a a lot quicker clip than the ready-to-drink class, Ellsworth mentioned, because of Unilever‘s Liquid I.V. and smaller upstarts like LMNT. On Amazon alone, powders are a $1 billion class, in line with Ellsworth.
The ready-to-drink, or RTD, sports activities drinks are a a lot bigger market, however the class’s gross sales are shrinking as shoppers attain for different hydration choices as an alternative. Unit gross sales of sports activities drinks have fallen 9.1% from 2022 to 2026, in line with Numerator information. And Coca-Cola has written down the worth of BodyArmor by greater than $1.7 billion after shopping for management of the model for $5.6 billion in late 2021.
That does not fear Jetty’s founders.
“Me and my husband know the way to do RTD,” Ellsworth mentioned.
Jetty will launch with 5 flavors, together with watermelon, orange mango, fruit punch, black raspberry and white cherry. All of them include 100 milligrams of sodium, 310 milligrams of potassium and 100 milligrams of magnesium in a 15.2-ounce bottle or 15-gram packet.
Along with electrolytes, Jetty merchandise additionally include B nutritional vitamins, 3 grams of fiber and 6 grams of sugar. It would not use synthetic sweeteners or dyes, its founders say.
For comparability, a 20-ounce bottle of conventional Gatorade Thirst Quencher has about 270 milligrams of sodium and 80 milligrams of potassium, plus 34 grams of sugar. The sports activities drink model can also be phasing out synthetic colours and selling lower-sugar variations.
“What’s actually attention-grabbing about this product and this chance is we now can seize all these lapsed drinkers — or that era that did not even ever drink it within the first place,” Ellsworth mentioned.
Jetty vs. Gatorade
Poppi’s new proprietor is aware of about Jetty and the market it’s making an attempt to seize, too.
“I do not assume [Pepsi] will get it, however what they do get is that the motion is altering, they usually assume that simply by taking dyes out or doing 90% much less sugar, they are going to seize this viewers,” Ellsworth mentioned. “However that could be very large company considering.”
She added that she believes Pepsi has missed the mark on promoting to Gen Z shoppers throughout its portfolio, corresponding to in its campaigns for Sprite competitor Starry.
Maybe as an extension of that, Poppi’s efficiency has been underwhelming underneath PepsiCo’s possession.
The meals and beverage big now estimates the truthful worth of potential performance-based funds to Poppi’s prior house owners is $12 million, Pepsi mentioned in a regulatory submitting in October. On the time of the deal, Pepsi promised a further cost of $300 million if Poppi hit sure targets by the third quarter of 2027. The Ellsworths declined to touch upon the submitting to CNBC.
This time round, with one profitable model underneath their belts, Jetty’s founders say they’ve discovered from previous errors. These classes ought to assist Jetty because it launches at a a lot bigger scale than Poppi did.
Three completely different claims attorneys have signed off on Jetty’s packaging, in line with Ellsworth. Poppi paid $8.9 million to settle class-action litigation alleging false promoting over its “intestine wholesome” claims.
For now, Jetty is totally self-funded with $2.5 million, though Ellsworth mentioned that the model will seemingly elevate cash in 2027. This time, although, she mentioned buyers will most likely look much less like conventional enterprise capitalists.
“I need to usher in buyers that carry worth,” Ellsworth mentioned. As an alternative of a enterprise capitalist who’s prepared to take a position $15 million, Jetty would quite contemplate buyers who can solely write a examine for $1 million however have entry to celebrities. “So then you definately’re having access to expertise on a less expensive degree and folks which can be invested within the model.”
And Jetty has additionally discovered a couple of classes from Gatorade. For instance, the model is already at work on a lemon-lime model — the unique taste of Gatorade.
“We’ll ultimately do it,” Ellsworth mentioned. “Nevertheless it was actually essential at the start simply to stay to flavors that we love, for it to style good.”