Functional beverages

Functional beverages are typically vegetable and fruit-based drinks that have an added ingredient targeted to attain a specific “function” important to health. Various types of ingredients are used, for example: vitamins, mineral salts, anti-oxidising molecules, fibres, probiotic micro-organisms, and prebiotic factors (dissolvable fibre). Functional drinks encounter a rising demand in more advanced markets where consumers search for healthy and natural products without having to resort to diet foods, which are commonly associated with poor taste and have a “punitive” look-and-feel.