The past two years have been an exciting time for The FRS Co., makers and marketers of FRS Healthy Energy ready-to-drink beverages. Launched in 2004, FRS Healthy Energy built the foundation of its business on sales of its products on an e-commerce site, healthyenergy.com. In the past two years, the company has made a major push to increase its distribution and expand the availability of its products into more national retail accounts. Since late 2007, the company’s distribution network has been significantly expanded to more than 20,000 outlets nationwide, including health and wellness experts like GNC and the Vitamin Shoppe, as well as other major chains such as Safeway, Publix, Meijer, Rite Aid and Duane Reade, according to the company.

Simon Goode, vice president of marketing, says ramping up the company’s retail base is priority No. 1 in 2010 in order to maintain FRS’ exponential growth—the company’s revenue has grown five-fold since the end of 2007.

“We have so many different growth opportunities from a business perspective and our challenge is to kind of prioritize what opportunities we should bite off immediately and how do we keep business growing. We’re very focused on building our distribution base and at the same time continue to use our innovative e-commerce program, which was an important part of the initial growth of this business and has been a platform to springboard our retail growth,” Goode says.

For instance, in 2009, the company says millions visited its e-commerce site and 200,000 15-day product samples were shipped to potential new customers.

“The e-commerce program is really a unique vehicle, one that has enabled us, when we go into a new retail account, instead of building from scratch, we already have a core group of users who are buying the product on the Internet,” Goode says.
The company has now built a core consumer group of professional and amateur athletes as well as health-savvy consumers who are passionate about the product and its benefits.

According to CEO Carl Sweat, who joined the company just last month and is a former Coca-Cola, North America executive, FRS’ beverages have a number of unique attributes that differentiate the line from other healthy energy products on the market.

Formulated as a healthy alternative to traditional energy drinks and designed to provide sustained energy, FRS Healthy Energy does not rely on caffeine, taurine or sugar for its energy boost, but rather contains a patented formula fueled by quercetin, a powerful antioxidant found in fruits and vegetables, such as red apples, grapes and berries. The patented FRS formula contains the highest purity quercetin as well as a mix of vitamins and metabolic enhancers to help increase quercetin absorption, or bioavailability.

Numerous clinical studies have shown quercetin to deliver sustained energy while also promoting improved fitness and overall health.

The beverage product line includes six flavors packaged in sleek cans—orange, lemon lime, low cal orange, low cal wild berry, low cal citrus pomegranate and low cal peach mango. The low cal versions have 25 calories per can. The drinks also contain vitamins B6, B12, C and E and green tea leaf extract to support overall health. In addition to the RTD beverages, FRS has expanded its product range in order to make the FRS healthy energy system available to consumers in a variety of formats—a drink mix concentrate, drink mix powders and soft chews, which offer portability and convenience, Goode notes.

“Consumers become absolutely evangelical about this product, which creates extremely loyal repeat purchases. So word-of-mouth is an extremely important channel for us,” Goode says.

Beyond the effectiveness of the product and the clinical and scientific studies backing up quercetin’s performance benefits, the company also is endorsed and consumed by numerous professional athletes. Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong is FRS’ key product endorser and the company launched just last month a series of national television advertising spots with Armstrong. The “Lance Armstrong Has a Secret” ad campaign captures Armstrong’s passion for training and reaches a national audience.

Other professional athletes who consume and advocate the product include Derek Fisher, starting point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooke Hansen, AVP beach volleyball defensive player of the year.

Sweat also points out that studies have shown that the key ingredient quercetin has a number of health benefits beyond sustained energy that gives the company a good platform on which to expand out from its core base of users.

“There’s the potential to be a billion-dollar health and wellness brand and healthy energy gives us that epicenter of credibility to build from,” Sweat says. “The trick is as you ramp up, to make sure you don’t lose the authenticity of the brand among its core users. There are some very passionate users of this brand and it’s one of the things that attracted me to the brand in the first place.”

VITAL STATS
THE FRS CO.
CEO: Carl Sweat
HEADQUARTERS: Foster City, Calif.
EMPLOYEES: 100+
GOALS: To continue to expand distribution and availability of FRS Health Energy ready-to-drink beverages to a wider base of consumers and educate consumers about the sustained energy benefits of FRS’ patented ingredient formula.

From Beverage World February 15, 2010