LAS VEGAS — Hydration is an enormous part of the performance equation for everyone from the weekend warrior to the elite athlete. After three years of research and development, one local company will release this summer a product to make the ingestion of water-based vitamins, minerals and supplements easy.
The Reston-based company LifeFuels has won 12 innovation and corporate awards since they launched their concept two years ago, including an Innovation Award in the Sports, Fitness and Biotech category presented here at CES 2018.
Their product bridges a gap between nutrition and wearable technology. It’s essentially a sports bottle, but along with a half-liter liquid container, it includes “fuel pods” containing vitamins, minerals and supplements, and it connects via Bluetooth to an app that lets users track their daily requirements and intake of nutrients — even automatically order new fuel pods when the user runs out.
“We’re actually a beverage company that’s disrupting the beverage industry; we’re a hardware company that’s disrupting the water bottle industry, and we’re also a software company — that’s ironically the easiest part of this,” said Jonathon Perrelli, CEO and co-founder of LifeFuels.
“The bottle holds up to three fuel pods, each of which can contain up to 15 servings, so you are essentially walking around with up to 45 functional flavored beverages in your hand,” he said. “And our companion app works in conjunction with the Apple Watch, Fitbit, Garmin and other products that basically closes the loop on fitness, allowing you to track not only output but also input.”
With LifeFuels now in its final stages of testing, Perrelli said delivery is on target for summer.
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“Right now we’re testing with Olympic, national and regional athletes, working through some of the best trainers in the world, and we’ll continue that testing in order to ensure that when consumers buy these products off the shelves or off our site they will have been thoroughly tested for months.”
LifeFuels is working with a premium retail partner and partnering with a beverage company — the name of which it can’t disclose — “but has been making beverages for [nearly] 200 years,” he said.
Perrelli said he has served as “my company’s own personal test market all throughout the process.”
“In the morning when I wake up, I take a ‘daily wellness,’ so in that sense, it’s a vitamin product. After lunch, it’s energy. For pre-workout and post-workout, we have a daily greens that are absolutely delicious — so much so that my kids even drink that one.”
When it hits the market, LifeFuels will be priced at $149, which includes three welcome pack pods. Thereafter, the pods will cost between $5 and $10 each.