The company’s founders describe ketone drinks of the past as tasting like ‘nail polish’. They claim Kenetik is the world’s first bioidentical ketone drink that both works and is appealing to the palate.
“The challenge is that ketones typically taste terrible, and it's very expensive,” said co-founder Devon Price. “So we developed a way to make the exact same ketone your body makes and through a biofermentation process from organic sugar cane. It’s a unique process that we have a patent on.”
The poor taste from some ketone drinks is caused by the chemical bond created by ketone esters. In contrast, Kenetik is a blend of D-Beta-hydroxybutyric acid (D-BHB), the same ketone molecule that the body naturally produces and R-1,3-butanediol, a ketone precursor the body fully converts into D-BHB.
At 12 grams of bioidentical ketones, the company’s founders say their product is designed to boost brain function, provide clean energy and support overall health.
Consumers can currently buy the drink on the company’s website, with pricing starting at $29.94 for a six-pack, as well as ready-to-mix concentrates and interfast metabolic support capsules.
Research
The liver produces ketones—acids the body releases as it burns fats—when there is not enough glucose to provide energy. This can happen when not enough carbohydrates are consumed, or when someone fasts or exercises for a long time.
“As your brain's favorite fuel source, ketones will make you feel refreshed. You'll feel clear,” Price said. “As for athletes, ketones are great as a dual fuel with carbohydrates. They improve endurance, performance.”
The U.S. military first researched and developed drinkable ketones that were given to soldiers to help them perform at their peak and on extended missions.
Since the military’s research, studies have expanded beyond physical performance to include a range of health concerns, including ketones’ impacts on sleep efficiency. Kenetik is also working with University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine researchers who are studying the influence of ketones on alcohol use disorder and withdrawal from other addictive substances.
Price, who studied mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and completed graduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said Kenetik is partnering with organizations such as the Boulder Longevity Institute and its Longevity Launch Labs to commercialize Kenetik Pro, a separate product that will only be available through doctors’ offices.
A serendipitous rebrand
Five years ago, Kenetik did not have the smoothest of starts. Getting off the ground was challenging during the pandemic, Price said. As consumers were not going to bars and people were drinking at home, and from cans. This made sourcing cans for a new ketone drink difficult.
Once the company founders were ready to advertise Kenetik on social media, essential to their business model, they also faced hiccups. They initially began advertising the brand on Meta (Facebook) as ‘Ketone Elixir’ to garner attention from people on a ketogenic diet, people who had specific metabolic issues and those who wanted to have sugar-free and caffeine-free options. Shortly after Kenetik’s advertising campaign launch on the platform, Meta’s algorithm flagged one of the company’s ads as ‘against its standards’, declaring that Kenetik was selling alcohol. This permanently disabled the company’s Meta account.
“I tapped my network,” said Peter Bayne, Kenetik’s co-founder. “All the way up, we were talking to senior vice presidents at Facebook, and they looked into it and said, ‘I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do.’”
That decision forced the company to rebrand as Kenetik, which Bayne said was serendipitous. Instead of focusing on a client base enmeshed in a ketone lifestyle, the new branding allowed the company to cast a wider net of customers. That included people who were concerned about metabolic and cellular health, those who wanted a new functional beverage, or individuals looking to avoid the sugar and caffeine in energy drinks.
“We knew that there was a larger sphere around health and wellness that we wanted to be a part of, and we were worried that not many people knew what a ketone was, not even today,” Bayne said.
When Kenetik’s founders attend sporting events, such as the Grand Prix or the Sea Otter Classic, they find that one out of every 10 participants understand what ketones do. Even fewer had tried ketone ester-based drinks, and those who had noted they tasted bad, the founders said.
“Flavor was the most important thing, and as I come from the restaurant world where taste matters, we said we want to have the best ketones out there, but we really want to have the best tasting ketones,” Bayne said.
Kenetik emphasizes that the bioidentical nature of its ketone-based drink helps make it better tasting than its competitors' products, though the founders said they would prefer not to talk about their ‘secret sauce’.
What they do talk about to customers is basic biochemistry. Kenetik has 60 calories per can, from the ketones themselves. They are an energy source that turns into ATP, which provides energy to drive and support many functions in living cells. Ketones are a natural anti-inflammatory which helps with muscle recovery. They also clear out damaged cells and free radicals.
The future
Kenetik is not in brick-and-mortar stores yet because, as Bayne explained, the company wants to grow smart and make sure it is ready.
“But we get requests from certain smaller health food stores, and we have regional sales teams that are starting to push our product into bicycle and running specialized shops—that’s taking off,” he said.
As for new products, Kenetik is considering ketone gummies and working on the chemistry of such products. Although many gummies exist in the market, Bayne said that few companies have a dose that is efficacious for these products because it is difficult to reach a certain heat threshold without reducing the efficacy.
He added that Kenetik is pushing the bounds of innovation.
“You never reach the finish line," Bayne said. "I think that's the one thing I've learned from business.”