Live Cultured Sodas & Beyond

Jun 25, 2025 | Blog

A blog post series analyzing the world of probiotics, live cultured soda production and the emerging market

Selling our live cultured sodas at the Bloomfield Market in Pittsburgh, PA.

Part 1

The Emerging Soda Market

If you’re reading this you may have seen or heard about the current probiotic and prebiotic soda trend. This segment of beverages is growing rapidly. Since early 2025 the prebiotic soda brand, Poppi, has been outcompeting Coke and Pepsi on Amazon. This resulted in Pepsi Co purchasing Poppi for nearly $2 billion! The growing market of probiotic and prebiotic sodas, valued at over $400 million, is expected to surpass half a billion dollars this year.

To dissect the fascinating market of exploding live cultured sodas, we need to first explore the topic of probiotics. I want to start with a zoomed out perspective. This sets the landscape for the world of research on probiotics and fermented foods. In the next blog post, I’ll dive further into the live cultured sodas and how to make them!

Colorful, flavored, live-cultured soda bottles under the blue sky.

Probiotics vs. Fermented Foods

Are “probiotic foods” worth the hype?

The science around probiotics, prebiotics, postbiotics and the microbiome is very new. While humans have been investing a lot more time and money into understanding these topics over the past couple decades, scientists still know very little about this microscopic world. I’m definitely a strong believer in the health benefits of fermented products, however, I think the health claims and intense marketing around probiotic foods can be inflated. In other words, these brands could be overpromising their deliverables.

In recent years the term “probiotic” has indicated a very specific definition. At least, according to ISAPP (International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics), probiotics are “live microorganisms that, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host.” The studies done on probiotics are administered on isolated, often single species, populations of bacteria. Most brands labeling their fermented food or beverage products as ‘probiotic’ don’t incorporate the same isolated sub-species/strains of bacteria that clinically-researched trials study. Instead, fermented foods most often contain an ecosystem of microbes (from bacteria to yeast), in addition to a complex array of chemicals, nutrients and constituents, that can’t be studied and isolated in the same way that single species of bacteria in capsules can.

Who is the ISAPP?

The ISAPP is a non-profit organization that is partially funded by (drumroll) the probiotic industry. Can there be non-biased research considering this source of funding? Perhaps, but often not. On the topic of food industry research, the wonderful Marion Nestle notes that “the influence of the funders shows up in the way the research question is framed or the results are interpreted.” While some of the results could be skewed, we have enough evidence from many studies to suggest there are benefits to both probiotics and fermented foods. However, there is particularly a lack of research on the live cultured qualities of fermented foods. Specifically, systematic reviews and double-blind, randomized controlled trials don’t exist with fermented foods the way they do with probiotics.

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Live cultures in fermented foods

I can point to several reasons for the absence of this research, such as the variability of microbes for each batch of fermented product (therefore running into barriers around ‘controlled’ trials) and the lack of funding going into this. You can’t make big bucks off of food the way you can with capsules of isolated bacteria that can be mass-produced and sold for $50 a bottle. No wonder the ISAPP and the probiotic industry have such a strong voice in opposition to fermented food companies using the word ‘probiotic’ on labeling! They might be right that this labeling could be misleading in relation to what specific health benefits are offered from fermented foods, however, these companies could threaten their own profits. Are you surprised? Profit as motive? No way!

We need more research around fermented foods

There’s enough evidence to say that fermented foods can enhance nutrients, both increasing and preserving its bioavailability. Additionally, fermentation can detoxify toxins and acids, as well as predigest our food, therefore making it more digestible for us. However, to actually study the specific live cultures of a fermented product in a randomized, double-blind, clinically-controlled trial is very challenging. We could say, by association based on modern research, that some fermented foods that contain the same live bacterial cultures as those in probiotic studies may have some similar benefits.

At this point, you might be wondering, “Wow, is a fermentation educator and live-cultured product developer saying that the live cultures in fermented foods don’t have benefits”? Not at all! I honestly think we will never have enough data to truly understand how important fermented foods could be for our health. And I’m okay with that. This is coming from someone who swears that consuming dorm-brewed kombucha (under my bed in college) and large amounts of miso at certain points in his life conferred significant health benefits. I also recognize the misuse and misunderstanding of modern science for marketing and profit. I actually agree with the ISAPP that many fermented food and beverage brands are likely misleading their customers by using the word ‘probiotic’. At least, until we have more evidence around the benefits of live cultured foods, I will opt out of labeling my products as ‘probiotic’ and will continue to use the words ‘live cultures’.

The other point about the hyper-fixation on fermented foods for health is that it totally ignores the tradition, culture and history behind these products. And that’s a great topic for another blog post.

See you next time, when I’ll dive into the world of live-cultured sodas.

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