Customizing superfood drinks: Nestlé’s NesQino reinvents personalized “good for you” beverages

28 Apr 2020 --- Personalized nutrition is taken to another level with Nestlé’s latest beverage innovation – the NesQino which creates healthy, customizable superfood drinks quickly and easily for the at-home or in-office market. It’s touted as a “smart and simple” solution using natural ingredients including fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, roots and microalgae. The sachets also contain probiotics to help boost overall wellbeing. FoodIngredientsFirst talks with the Swiss giant about its “smart, personalized nutrition” strategy.

Using advanced flash-freezing and drying techniques, combined with patented powder technologies developed by the Nestlé R&D team, the ingredients are naturally preserved with no additives, preservatives, artificial colors or flavors. Complementary base sachets are also made from dairy milks, cereals, and plant-based ingredients.

“Living a healthy lifestyle shouldn’t be hard. It should be easy and enjoyable and fit the life you want to lead, no matter who you are. nesQino meets the trend towards smart personalized nutrition. Personalized, because it allows consumers to create wholesome, super tasty and healthy drinks with the best natural ingredients, loaded with superfoods and probiotics, matching different needs. Smart, because it allows people to prepare their customized superfood drinks in an intelligent and convenient way, at the touch of a button on their Q-cup machine or smartphone,” explains a company spokesperson. 

“People can also explore recipe combinations using the app, access nutritional information, and share recipes with friends. So in this segment nesQino will, we believe, fast become a trendsetting product.”

NesQino is initially being launched in China – where the packaging is recyclable – and comprises a silent, digitally connected Q-cup machine, superfood sachets, and three different base sachets: smoothie, oat shake and milk shake.

Consumers can choose one superfood sachet and one base sachet, pour the contents into the Q-cup with water and select the desired temperature. Hot or cold beverages are ready in just two minutes. There are 21 different superfood drink recipes that have been designed by nutritionists.

“The team at our Nestlé R&D center and Dairy Business Unit in China was integral to the development and launch of nesQino. In addition, Chinese consumers, in particular Millennials and Gen-Z, are interested in such smart personalized nutrition products. They are cosmopolitan, but also individual, and take nutrition and health seriously while desiring an easy-going lifestyle. In terms of other markets, launches will follow in due course. Watch this space,” the spokesperson reveals. 

Superfood sachets
It took the Nestlé team 18 months to develop a full range of products and system for NesQino.

“The goal is to offer a personalized wellness experience, so each of the seven superfood sachets has a name and targets a specific need using the ingredients used,” they continue. “For example, one superfood sachet is called ‘timeless flair’ and supports ‘antioxidant resilience’. The recipe contains ingredients including strawberries, sea buckthorn and chia seeds, beetroot and probiotics. You can mix this with any one of the three base sachets, depending on your tastes, to craft your customized drink.”

“Other sachet choices are ‘screen rescue’ (a naturally purple superfood fusion with blueberries, purple carrot, goji berry extract, apple, lemon zest and probiotics that supports ‘vision’), and ‘Glowing shield’ (a naturally orange superfood fusion of mango, carrot and acerola cherries for ‘immunity’).

The other superfood sachets meet the following wellbeing needs: ‘vitality’, ‘focus’, ‘gut health’ and ‘detox’.

By Gaynor Selby