After using Poppi to revolutionize the soda category, the founders Allison and Stephen Ellsworth have now set their sights on the hydration market, launching a new brand called Jetty.

Starting from Monday, Jetty beverages and ready-to-drink electrolyte packets will be available on the shelves of Whole Foods supermarkets, and can also be purchased online at Target and Amazon.

This brand-new self-financed startup project directly propelled the Ellsworth couple towards the issuance of Peps tokens. The latter acquired Poppi for $1.95 billion in 2025. Pepsi owns Gatorade, and according to data from Numerator, Gatorade holds approximately 60% of the market share in the sports drink category in the United States.

Poppi has stirred up the soda market with its prebiotic fiber, low-calorie and low-sugar content, as well as engaging marketing targeted at Generation Z and millennials. Jetty hopes to rewrite the water replenishment beverage market with a similar strategy. However, it faces not only Gatorade, but also a group of new brands that want to share in the electrolyte craze.

For decades, Gatorade and other sports drinks have focused their product selling points on athletes, emphasizing the importance of replenishing electrolytes and water after intense exercise, even though many consumers actually drink them every day. Jetty is aimed at those who need to rehydrate and refresh themselves but do not require the high levels of electrolytes or sugar found in traditional sports drinks.

Jetty Chief Brand Officer Allison Ellsworth said to CNBC: "No one has really created a product for daily hydration – in the literal sense, for ordinary people's daily hydration. For example, this morning when I woke up, I didn't go run a marathon again."

The hydration challenges brought about by GLP-1

After selling Poppi to Peps for token issuance, Ellsworth continued to serve as the brand consultant, but she stated that she was no longer involved in the daily operations.

After managing Poppi for 10 years, Ellsworth said that she finally had some free time. According to her, it was the first time in 10 years that she went to see a doctor, and afterwards she started using GLP-1 medication, which helped her lose 60 pounds.

Jetty was born just like that.

Her husband, Stephen, who now serves as the CEO of a new brand, noticed that even after coming back from the gym, she didn't properly rehydrate herself.

Drugs such as Ozempic, Mounjaro, and GLP-1 may make one less thirsty. However, since staying hydrated also helps to alleviate some side effects of these drugs, such as nausea and headaches, hydration may actually become even more important.

Ellsworth said, 'I really find it physically strenuous to drink liquids into my body.'

Jetty is exactly what is needed to solve this problem.

For consumers, plain water is often not attractive enough, even for users of dehydrated GLP-1; products with additional features and a richer variety of flavors are more likely to attract them. According to the third annual survey conducted by EY-Parthenon among over 3,600 current or former GLP-1 users, approximately 44% of the GLP-1 users stated that they would consume more functional beverages.

Ellsworth also believes that Jetty has a broader audience.

She said, "Our core audience will be millennial mothers and Generation Z. Generation Z doesn't identify with these established brands at all. They think Gatorade and Powerade and other such historical burdens are not cool at all."

Electrolyte popularity is on the rise

Overall, consumers' interest in maintaining hydration is on the rise.

According to the SPINS data tracking the new generic product code (UPC), within the 52 weeks up to October 4th, the dollar sales of rehydration and electrolyte products increased by 20%, reaching $2.6 billion. The repurchase rate for this category was also very high, at 62%.

However, the Ellsworth couple are not the only ones who have seen the potential of the hydration market. SPINS data shows that in the past two years, the number of new products in this category with annual sales of at least $10,000 has increased by 41%.

Large food and beverage companies are also paying attention to the hydration market segment.

Kraft Heinz launched Capri Sun juice pouches and Kool-Aid ready-to-mix packets with electrolytes this spring. In April, Pepsi announced a comprehensive redesign of the Gatorade brand, focusing on making it more attractive to a wider range of consumers and covering more usage scenarios, such as "a fresh start in the morning" or "afternoon walks." Keurig Dr Pepper-distributed Electrolit performed strongly, with the company's retail sales increasing by 40% in the third quarter.

All this means that the competition for shelf space and consumer “throat share” will become even more intense. “Throat share” is a term used in the beverage industry to refer to market share.

In order to enhance the visibility of Jetty in supermarkets and maximize shopping convenience, Jetty will offer both powder and bottled forms.

Ellsworth said that the growth rate of single-use electrolyte mixing products is much faster than that of ready-to-drink categories, thanks to Unilever's smaller new brands such as Liquid I .V. and LMNT. She mentioned that on Amazon alone, the powder category represents a market of one billion dollars.

The ready-to-drink (RTD) sports drink market is much larger, but sales of this category are declining as consumers turn to other hydration options. According to (Numerator) data, the sales volume of sports drinks decreased by 9.1% from 2022 to 2026. After Coca-Cola acquired a controlling stake in (BodyArmor) for $5.6 billion at the end of 2021, it has written down the value of that brand by more than $1.7 billion.

This did not worry the founder of Jetty.

Ellsworth said, "My husband and I know how to make ready-to-drink products."

Jetty will initially launch five flavors, including watermelon, orange mango, juice sandwich, black raspberry, and white cherry. Each product is available in a 15.2-ounce bottle or a 15-gram powder packet, and contains 100 milligrams of sodium, 310 milligrams of potassium, and 100 milligrams of magnesium.

In addition to electrolytes, the Jetty product also contains B vitamins, 3 grams of fiber, and 6 grams of sugar. The founder stated that the product does not use artificial sweeteners or colorants.

For comparison, a traditional 20-ounce bottle of Gatorade Thirst Quencher contains approximately 270 milligrams of sodium and 80 milligrams of potassium, as well as 34 grams of sugar. This sports drink brand is also gradually removing artificial colors and promoting low-sugar versions.

Ellsworth said, "What's really interesting about this product and this opportunity is that we can now attract those people who no longer drink sports drinks – or rather, those who never drank them in the first place."

Jetty vs Gatorade

The new owner of Poppi is also familiar with Jetty and the market it attempts to enter.

Ellsworth said, "I don't think [Pepsi] really understands it, but they do realize that trends are changing. They think that by removing the pigments or reducing sugar by 90%, they can attract this type of consumer. However, this is a very typical way of thinking for large companies."

She added that she believes Pepsi has not accurately targeted its advertising efforts towards Gen Z consumers across the entire product portfolio, such as its marketing campaigns aimed at Sprite's competitor Starry.

Perhaps for this reason, Poppi has not performed ideally under the Peps token issuance.

In regulatory documents submitted in October, Pepsi stated that the food and beverage giant now estimates the fair value of potential performance-related payments to the former owners of Poppi to be $12 million. According to the terms of the transaction, Pepsi had promised to make an additional $300 million payment if Poppi met certain targets by the third quarter of 2027. The Ellsworth couple declined to comment on this document with CNBC.

This time, with the experience of a successful brand, the founder of Jetty stated that they have learned from past mistakes. This experience should help Jetty get off to a much larger scale than Poppi did back then.

Ellsworth said that the packaging of Jetty has been recognized by three different litigation lawyers. Previously, Poppi was accused of false advertising for its claims of "benefiting intestinal health" and had to pay $8.9 million to settle a class action lawsuit.

Currently, Jetty is fully funded by its own capital, amounting to 2.5 million US dollars; however, Ellsworth indicates that the brand is likely to seek financing in 2027. This time, she says, investors may not be like those from traditional venture capital firms.

She said, "I want to attract investors who can bring value." Jetty There's no need necessarily for a venture capital firm willing to invest 15 million dollars; on the contrary, they would prefer to consider investors who can write checks for only 1 million dollars but have access to celebrities. "In this way, you can obtain star resources at a lower cost, and these people will also truly commit to the brand."

Jetty also learned something from Gatorade. For example, the brand is already developing a lemon-lime flavor, which is also Gatorade's original classic flavor.

Ellsworth said, "We will eventually do that. But at the beginning, the most important thing is to stick to the flavors we like ourselves and make it taste good first."