Nuun and Company is a leading producer of performance hydration tablets, providing a cleaner alternative to sugary sports drinks. Founded in 2004, Nuun has experienced rapid growth of 40% over the last two years, becoming the top-selling performance hydration brand in the sports specialty market. The company's flagship product Nuun Active is a vegan, gluten-free electrolyte tablet containing no sugar or carbs. Nuun's growth is driven by its focus on "clean" products and the leadership of its CEO Kevin Rutherford, who aims to disrupt the sports nutrition market as he did in the cleaning products industry.

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Nuun & Company
Performance hydration, now in tablet form
T H E M A G A Z I N E F O R L E A D I N G B U S I N E S S E X E C U T I V E S
FOOD & BEVERAGE

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NUUN AND
COMPANY
Performance hydration,
now in tablet form
Produced by Forrest Lancaster and Written by Matt Dodge
H
istorically there have only been two options when it comes to performance hydration: sugary sports drinks
or plain old water.Today a new market sector is emerging to serve the needs of increasingly health-conscious
athletes who are as concerned about what they put into their bodies as what they get out of them and Nuun
and Company is leading the way.
Founded in Seattle in 2004, Nuun and Company started out as one man’s solution to an age-old problem for
endurance athletes like cyclists, runners and triathletes — how to hydrate and fuel mid-workout without losing
valuable time. For founder Tim Moxey, the solution was to harness familiar effervescent tablet technology as a means
of quickly delivering nutrients, vitamins and minerals into the bloodstream.
In the last decade Nuun has become the country’s No.1 performance hydration product in the sports specialty market,
experiencing 40 percent growth for both of the last two years as the domestic isotonic drinks market continues to
expand, with established brands like Gatorade steadily losing ground to less sugary options such as Nuun.“The sports
nutrition drink industry is rapidly growing for health-conscious consumers and ‘clean’ products like Nuun are doing
very well,” says Kevin Burnette, spokesman for Nuun and Company.
The company’s flagship product,Nuun Active,is a vegan,gluten-free,clean-sport certified and GMO-free (verification
in progress) tablet that contains no carbs, low sugar and is designed as a replacement for typical sports drinks. In May
2015, the product landed coveted space on the shelves of Whole Foods Markets across the country. Other products
in the Nuun line include caffeinated Nuun Energy, carbohydrate-loaded Plus for Nuun and a line of effervescent
vitamins called Nuun All Day.
Industry experience drives rapid growth
Much of Nuun’s rapid growth over the last two years can be attributed to the arrival of president and CEO Kevin
Rutherford in 2013, whose experience in marketing consumer packaged goods includes stints at Kashi and Mrs.
Meyers Clean Day. At the latter, Rutherford grew the business by over 85 percent in his role as president and CEO.
“He is an athlete, innovator and a leader in making cleaner products,” says Burnette.

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At Nuun, Rutherford aims to make the same impact on the
performance drink market as he did in cleaning products. “He
definitely disrupted the cleaning space in a good way; it became
something people became proud to put above the sink, not just
below the sink,” says Burnette.
Rutherford’s track record in helping once-obscure brands break
into the mainstream makes him an ideal fit for Nuun. As director
of marketing at Kashi Co.,he helped the Bear Naked brand expand
from granola into energy bars, cereal and cookies. After 10 years of
steady growth, Nuun is ready for Rutherford to take its products
to the next level. “This brand has led the sports specialty market in
their first decade and is now going much broader across the natural
foods market with the goal of creating more options for health
consumers,” says Rutherford.
Nuun’s promotes three “clean” tenants that reflect the ethos of its
customers: clean sport, clean product, clean planet. The company
focuses on getting illegal drug use out of professional sports and
sponsors “clean” athletes such as Olympian distance runner Kara
Goucher.“From a planet side the product is better sourced and each
tube of Nuun has 10 tablets, so that’s essentially 10 water bottles
saved,” says Burnette. At a recent expo in Utah, the Nuun booth
was built out of used cardboard boxes and featured a stationary
bike that could be used to power lights and music.
Bubbling up to the top of the market
Being shoved into the spotlight can be a make-or-break moment
for a company. After experiencing 40 percent growth in just a
two-year period, Nuun proceeded very carefully to assure that
such rapid growth wouldn’t leave the company unable to meet
demand. “They had clean operations and financials and the
framework wasn’t bloated — they were in a position to grow
and it’s just been a natural explosion,” says Burnette of Nuun’s
progression.
To ensure that the product is ready for the big time, the company
has been testing out a new, increasingly organic version with all
plant-based ingredients at Whole Foods stores across the country.
“We tested the new flavors to make sure we could manage
production well; keeping up with growth on the product side has
been challenging,” says Burnette. Sticking close to their organic
roots, the four new flavors are all sweetened with monk fruit juice
and produced by machinery that uses avocado oil for lubrication.
Burnette says Nuun was already a leader in the sports specialty
market when overall consumer attitudes started to turn
increasingly toward all things natural and organic, giving Nuun
increased exposure and landing it at No. 1,036 on the Inc. 5000
list in 2011. “With broader consumer trends, they’re becoming a
natural leader in grocery,” he says. “Even Whole Foods — where
we have displays at checkouts at some of their major markets —
is like ‘how can we help you?’”
After a six-month stint on the shelves at Whole Foods and
cameo appearances at endurance sports events across the country,
the new blend of Nuun products is currently on the convention
circuit, with many of Nuun’s 43 employees trying to increase
distribution and win converts at expos such as the Canadian
Health Food Convention, Natural Products Expo West in
Anaheim, California, The Running Event in Austin, Texas, and
Outdoor Retailer in Salt Lake City.
For Nuun, success means growing the sports hydration/nutrition
market as a whole, not just eating away at the competition.
“Being a leader and outpacing the category growth is the focus,”
says Burnette.
By continuing to innovate, practicing what they preach and
educating an increasingly savvy consumer base on the health
benefits of nontraditional sports drinks, Nuun and Company
will continue to build on its role as a leader in the performance
hydration market.•

4. NUUN AND COMPANY
800 Maynard Ave S #102
Seattle, WA 98134
United States
WWW.NUUN.COM