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Orgain Shakes Up the Nutritional Beverage Category

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By Kat Schuett

They found a lump. It was cancer. Rhabdomyosarcoma, to be exact. Andrew

Abraham had just started his senior year of high school when his life would

change forever. Once you have had cancer, you often look at even the small-

est details of life differently—especially the ingredients panel on the food you

put inside your body.

Chemotherapy and radiation had completelykilled his appetite as well as his ability to keep downwhole food, so, like most cancer patients, Abrahamsubsisted on a diet of ready-to-drink (RTD) nutri-tional shakes. Then one day after forcing himself tochug one of these unpleasant-tasting shakes, he readthe ingredients list on the label and what he sawshocked him: mass amounts of genetically modifiedhigh fructose corn syrup (HFCS), artificial flavorsand colors, synthetic preservatives, cheap protein thatwas likely to be made from genetically modifiedsoy...

“The whole time I thought that these drinks hadto taste horrible for a reason—they must be good forme,” Abraham remembers. “I could not believe that aproduct marketed as a ‘healthy’ beverage—andsomething thousands of doctors recommend to sickpatients—contained the exact ingredients that arelinked to giving you disease in the first place.”

This revelation led to divine inspiration. Throughthe rest of his treatment, he blended his own shakes

till he had it down to an art. Years later, after completing medical school and becoming a familypractitioner, he has taken his shake-making skills to a whole new level—retail. In 2010, Dr. Abra-ham, who still works as a family care physician, launched the only certified organic nutritionalshake on the market: Orgain. The name was chosen to convey the organic health benefits thedrinker will “gain.” As Orgain’s slogan states: Gain health. Gain energy. Gain life.

RE P R I N T E D F RO M ORG A N I C PRO C E S S I N G MAG A Z I N E , MAY-JU N E 2011 , W I T H P E R M I S S I O N O F T H E P U B L I S H E R S .© 2011 BY TH E TA RG E T GRO U P • www.organicprocess ing .com

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Over the last few decades, the meal-replacement-drink category has grownto several billion dollars in size with well over 100 companies. These beveragesappeal to a spectrum of users, including thosewho are ill and cannot eat, as well as peoplelooking to lose weight, gain muscle, supple-ment their nutrition or just have a quick grab-and-go meal.

Now, just 17 months after bringing the prod-uct to market, Orgain is available in over 5,000retail outlets ranging from supermarkets tohealth club chains. Abraham also recentlylaunched a kids’ version of Orgain at NaturalProducts Expo West.

Today, Orgain is changing the way patients aswell as health professionals look at labels and isbeing recommended by physicians and nutri-tionists across the country. What’s more, Orgainhas also become a grass-roots movement, withconsumer advocates evangelizing about theproduct to local retailers, friends and family.

From the Blender to the Tetra PakWhen thinking about what to include in Orgain, Abraham and his wife, who

has a master’s degree in holistic nutrition, imagined what would be in a perfectmeal and then worked backward to create it.

Because many of those who were ill would be relying on this shake as thesole form of sustenance, it needed to contain all the essential nutrients andthen some extras to boost wellness. The list included complex organic carbohy-drates, healthy fats, bioavailable high-quality protein, fruits, vegetables, a longlist of vitamins and minerals and green tea (antioxidants)—and absolutely noartificial flavors, colors or preservatives. All this, and it had to taste good, too.

While some of the items he used in his home concoctions would make theingredient list, as anyone who has ever taken a product to market knows, whip-ping up something in the kitchen is very different from making it in massquantities to be carted around the country and stored for months.

So he started looking for a food scientist to help formulate the product, andone by one they turned him down, claiming that putting his list of ingredientsinto something that tastes good was an “impossible” task.

Then he found the one who said he would take on the project, and was pa-tient enough to keep trying over and over again to create the right mix. He wason the East Coast, Abraham was on the West Coast. So they met in the middleat a lab in Texas, and after about 40 attempts to formulate the product, Abra-ham about gave up. “I looked at the food scientist and said, ‘If we’re not able tomake it taste good, I’m fine with stopping the project,’” Abraham says.

They persevered, however, and in the next round of formulations, finallyfound one that was as tasty as it was healthy.

Good and Good for YouSo what exactly is in Orgain? One of the key ingredients is whey protein. Or-

gain is the only drink of its kind to have organic whey. Organic certified proteinwas very important, not only because of the lack of hormones, antibiotics and

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Orgain Healthy Kids was re-cently launched to give parentsan organic alternative to Pedi-aSure, which contains the sameHFCS and artificial flavors andpreservatives as the conven-tional brands for adults.


pesticides, but also because of thecontaminants in conventional pro-teins. Abraham points to an investiga-tion done by Consumer Reportsreleased in June 2010 that found wor-risome levels of heavy metals likelead, cadmium and arsenic in severalpopular conventional protein shakes.According to the report, proteindrinks are considered dietary supple-ments, so the makers are not re-quired to test the products before saleto ensure they are safe and effective.

Before deciding on whey, Abra-ham tried various organic proteinsources. Some were gritty or wouldsink to the bottom. Others, like soy,were not as easy for the body to assim-ilate and use, says Abraham. Plus,using soy would turn off many health-conscious consumers, he adds, point-ing out that several animal andhuman studies suggest that soy phyoe-strogens can behave like estrogen andpotentially increase breast cancer risk.

Whey, on the other hand, containslactoferrin, a substance found inbreast milk that has been shown toimprove immunity. Whey also is agood source of immunoglobulin,which plays a critical role in scaveng-ing the body to find and eradicate ab-normalities.

Sourcing organic whey, a byprod-uct of cheese production, was a chal-lenge, though. No matter where helooked, there didn’t seem to beenough whey to launch Orgain na-tionally and provide a secure supplyas the company grew. So he contacteda network of dairy farmers, con-tracted with these farmers to buytheir whey directly and brought it tothe company’s processing facility,where it is isolated into organic wheyprotein. In total, Orgain has 16 gramsof organic protein as compared toother nutritional shakes, which haveabout 9 to 10 grams of protein.

For healthy fats, Abraham choseorganic monounsaturated high-oleic


sunflower oil. Originally, he wanted something high in omegas, but after hehad performed numerous experiments, none of the options he found re-mained stable in a ready-to-drink beverage that was stored unrefrigerated. Plus,the omega-3s added to many foods use a hexane extraction process, which inaddition to environmental and health implications, also negatively affects thetaste of the product. In order to get the amount of omegas found in the recom-mended 2- to 3-gram daily dose of fish oil, it would take 60 times the amount ofomegas that they found they could put in the drink without adversely affectingthe flavor.

For his complex carbohydrates blend, Orgain includes organic brown ricesolids and organic brown rice syrup. Orgain’s sugar content, however, is a frac-tion of what is found in other nutritional shakes. Orgain has 13 grams of sugar,while Ensure has 22 grams and Slim-Fast has 34 grams! Others such as MuscleMilk use artificial sweeteners.

And what would a meal be without healthy fruits and vegetables? Orgain’sorganic freeze-dried powdered fruit and veggie combo combined with addedantioxidants like green tea gives the drink an ORAC value of 16,000—theequivalent of 10 fruits and vegetables. Additionally, a key part of the formula-tion was the vitamin and mineral mix. “I didn’t want to leave anything out,”Abraham says. “For some people, this will be their only source of nutrients—soit had to be as complete as possible.”

Last but not least was the flavor. Abraham had tried several “natural” flavorsand ended up choosing a certified organic vanilla.

“All of the others didn’t taste right to me, probably because certain chemicalswere used to extract natural flavors. With some of the other drinks on the market,you practically have to plug your nose toget it down. I am sure it is because theybuy the cheapest ingredients—and thatincludes cheap flavors. Organic flavorsare not cheap, but they are definitelyworth it when it comes to taste.”

Educating the InfluencersIn order to get Orgain out in the

marketplace, one of Abraham’s strate-gies was to go to the people most trustto know all there is to know abouthealth—doctors.

Like Abraham in the beginning,most people, even doctors, assumethese RTD nutritional shakes are some-what healthy—until they really look atthe label.

So Abraham set up a conference onthe subject through his local hospital’scontinuing education program. Over40 oncologists attended. The lecturebegan with a series of slides highlight-ing ingredients like HFCS, soy proteinand different carcinogenic preserva-tives, and at the end he asked, “Doesanyone know what this might be?” Thedoctors were shocked to find out thatthose ingredients made up the sameproduct that they had been recom-mending to patients. Abraham hasdone many more presentations sinceand says the feedback has been great.

He points out that while doctors aregreat at treating disease, they are not sogreat at preventing it. “Keep in mindthat most medical students only receiveabout two weeks of training on nutri-tion. Most of what I know on preventa-tive health I have learned throughyears of self-study.”

Abraham also reached out to nutri-tionists to give the same enlighteningpresentation and will be exibiting atthe American Dietetic Conference,which is geared towards over 9,000 pre-ventive health professionals. Recently,Orgain was launched into two majorhealth club chains—Lifetime Fitnessand 24 Hour Fitness.

“When you work out, the body re-

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Orgain’s website breaks down some of the differences between its organic RTD beverageand the conventional options.

”““Keep in mind that most medical students

only receive about two weeks of training on

nutrition.”



Plans for ExpansionTo give parents an organic alternative to brands like PediaSure, which con-

tains the same HFCS and artificial flavors and preservatives as the conventionalbrands for adults, Orgain launched a kid-size version at Natural Products ExpoWest this past March. Orgain Healthy Kids is very similar to the adult version ex-cept it is smaller, 8 ounces versus 13 ounces, and has more vitamin D and cal-cium, and less protein. It is marketed as an ideal way to make sure picky eatersare getting the proper nutrition for development, as well as a healthier option forafter-school snacks, meals on the run or as a pick-me-up after sports practice.

As for what’s next, Abraham says he is continually testing new ingredients tomake Orgain even more nutritious and adds that there are usually about 40 dif-ferent ingredients he is experimenting with in his kitchen at all times. He hasalso been looking for ways to make it more affordable, especially for those whoare ill and depend on Orgain for every calorie. Orgain currently sells for $2.99retail, which is not too bad when you consider that it is about 5 ounces largerthan its conventional competitors, however, it can add up when a cancer patientis drinking 6 to 8 servings a day. Recently, though, Orgain was made availablethrough Amazon.com’s Subscribe and Save program, bringing the price downto about $2 per unit—35 percent less than what it sells for in stores.

Meanwhile, Abraham’s biggest project continues to be enlightening con-sumers about what really is in so-called “healthy nutritional shakes” and makingsure no one ever has to plug their nose to chug another again.

Kat Schuett is the editorial director of Organic Processing Magazine. You can reach her [email protected].

leases a lot of oxidants, which is whyyou can sometimes get sick from over-doing it at the gym—the antioxidantsin Orgain can help fight these free rad-icals,” Abraham says.

Orgain also just received the “Ash-ley Koff Approved” (AKA) seal. Koff isa well-respected registered dietitianwho is regularly called on for her nutri-tional expertise in several media out-lets, including The Huffington Post,Good Morning America Health, E! News,O! The Oprah Magazine, Redbook, Natu-ral Health and Organic Processing maga-zines. The AKA endorsement is likelyto lead to a surge of media exposurefor Orgain—and cause many morepeople to look much more closely atthe label of their usual RTD shakes.

Consumer EvangelismAnother way Orgain is getting out to

new areas in the market is by givingcases of it away for free. Since itslaunch, Orgain has used a portion of itsprofits to give a free supply of Orgain tomore than 100 people who needed thenutrition but could not afford it. “Theonly thing I ask in return is that thepeople we help spread the word aboutOrgain—and they have!” he says.

One of the first people who re-ceived free product was a patient deal-ing with cancer. One year after givingher the product, Abraham started re-ceiving phone calls from pharmaciesand small retailers all around her arearequesting Orgain. “She had gone outand told everyone how much it hadhelped her,” Abraham says. “It was very rewarding and humbling to seethis kind of feedback, and it strength-ens our resolve to continue to helpothers.”

As part of this resolve, this summer,Abraham is going to be working withthe nonprofit Nourish America(www.nourishamerica.org) to launch a kids’ nutrition program, as well as an-other program working with malnour-ished seniors.

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