N.B. man starts his own company to replace traditional energy drinks

FREDERICTON -

Work Water came from Brody Hanson's desire to replace traditional energy drinks.

"It's a benefit and a curse to not knowing anything about the business you're going in, and that's where I'm at," said Brody Hanson, CEO of Work Water. "I'm starting from zero in terms of beverage experience."

He saw a market and made it work for him.

"Caffeine is the fuel of the working professional, and so I was one of those that would drink one or two energy drinks a day as an alternative to coffee, I didn't like coffee all that much," he said.

Hanson says he was turned off most off-the-shelf energy drinks, after a deep dive on their ingredient list.

"What's under the hood, I knew there had to be a better, healthier version of this that I could make, so I started mixing and making stuff for myself and once I talked about this to other people, I learned that there were more folks like me who wanted a healthier alternative," Hanson said.

And that's what the Fredericton native set out to create.

"They're no artificial sweeteners, no artificial preservatives, no sugar. What is in it? Stevia is the sweetener that we use, natural flavours, natural ingredients, natural caffeine extracted from green coffee beans, it's a clean label as the industry lingo I'm starting to learn would talk about," he said.

Hanson says the benefit of getting into a business you don't have a background in is getting to question how things are often done.

"Beverages don't ship direct to consumer, so I asked well why not, ok well they're heavy, it's hard to ship, but the landscape has changed; we sell online through our Shopify website," Hanson said.

There was another important aspect for Hanson when designing the beverage.

"The other problem with traditional energy drinks is they look like they're ready for you to compete in the X games, I mean, I'm 39 years old, I'm not looking to snowboard down a rocky mountain I'm looking to stay awake for this meeting, and so it doesn't work to bring out a can of brightly coloured, firework, unicorn, rainbows," he said.

Work Water, which Hanson says taste like -- quote -- "an elevated white popsicle," is already available in about 30 New Brunswick stores.