Day 12: Statistics
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
7:00 am
Some interesting caffeine statistics, and the meteoric rise of the energy drink market in the last ten years!
Video Summary:
Started contemplating what it might be like with no caffeine at all to drink in the mornings.
Still no noticeable withdrawal symptoms.
Coffee most traded commodity after oil.
Size of Coffee Market between 20-40 B per year for U.S.? (Correction: actually market is almost ten times bigger, see tomorrow’s video)
Energy drink market 12.5B expected to grow to 21.5B in 2017.
Some small states in the U.S. have GDP of 40B.
80% energy drinks, 20% energy shots.
Market has grown explosively in past decade, first energy drink in U.S. was Red Bull in 1997.
Growing segment in beverage industry. Soda is declining somewhat.
In coffee market, gourmet coffees have been the growth segment, I will cover Starbucks in future videos.
8.8% of all beverages drunk by high school kids are energy drinks
ER room visits related to caffeine doubled between 2007 and 2011.
This new wave of caffeine products is actually making people sick, and some people are even dying, so a new wave of concern over caffeine is sweeping the nation.
FDA on the case recently.
There was a big debate about how much caffeine to allow in sodas in the 1900s and they seem to have settled on around 50 mg or less, but somehow that that all seems to be forgotten as highly caffeinated energy drinks are now freely available to everyone.
Distinction between dietary supplement vs. conventional beverages has allowed beverage companies to skirt regulations.
Monster Energy is changing its designation from dietary supplement to conventional beverages for reasons that are not entirely clear, but may have to do with reporting illnesses.
Its sort of a fuzzy line, but since there is a strong market for the products, the products are being provided.
Taurine, Guarana and B Vitamins are in energy drinks also.