Functional drinks are an important aspect of a modern and healthy lifestyle. These drinks include non-traditional ingredients such as herbs, minerals, vitamins, electrolytes, or amino acids, and offer definite health-related benefits that go beyond general daily nutritional intake. In the last years, functional drinks are becoming more and more popular, showing constantly high growth rates in both, the European as well as the global market. Especially, for people that are constantly on-the-go, these drinks offer a great opportunity to support their physical and mental health.
However, while producers and advertisers claim the health benefits of functional drinks, independent tests confirm that functional ingredients lose their effect when they are dissolved in water for 24 hours. This degradation effect is even more intensified when exposed to UV light, oxygen or heat. Current pre-mixed functional drinks are therefore not capable of providing the users with the promised health and nutrition effects. In order to overcome this problem, it is necessary to keep the functional ingredients separated in a dry and airtight sealed dispensing cap and infuse them into the water just before consumption.
Despite the clear business opportunity, first competitive attempts towards the development of such a dispensing cap system have failed due to technical problems, high material and manufacturing costs, and lack of market/user knowledge. Horst Hähl GmbH, on the other hand, has developed and successfully tested the first real dispensing cap solution. With an annual output capacity of 10 million INCAPs and market experience from several pilot customer applications, Horst Hähl can offer the full range of services from manufacturing, foiling, filling, capping or a final product. Quality tests have been implemented to ensure a constant quality of products.
